Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that the venue was a brothel

The Aquarius sauna in the city's west end was shut for three months by a sheriff after police said it was being used as a brothel.

Residents in Park Quadrant complained that the massage parlour had made their lives hell for years.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that locals were hounded by men looking for sex.

Female householders were leered at in the street by kerb crawlers and ripped rubbish bags outside the massage parlour, overlooking Kelvingrove Park, spilled used condoms and tissues out on to the pavement.

I formed the opinion the premises was still operating under the guise of a health and fitness club but was a brothel Supt Donald Darroch Strathclyde Police

In February, George Colahan was found guilty of running Aquarius as a brothel and living off immoral earnings. He was jailed for nine months.

Following the conviction, Glasgow City Council suspended Aquarius's public entertainment licence, but it continued to open for business.

Amid complaints from residents, police placed the premises under surveillance in July and it was raided later that month.

The court heard that female Aquarius employees admitted to officers who searched the premises that they were selling sex.

A number of men caught inside the "continually busy" massage parlour confessed to police that they had been seeking sexual services.

Supt Donald Darroch told the court: "The information coming back to me was that the premises were still operating.

Massage parlour

"And concerns were still being expressed by residents about the behaviour of people coming and going, the noise and the traffic.

"People were being approached in the street. I formed the opinion the premises was still operating under the guise of a health and fitness club but was a brothel."

Geoffrey Forbes, the lawyer for Margaret MacFarlane, who was described as a receptionist at Aquarius, denied the premises was being used as a brothel.

He said it was a massage parlour offering aromatherapy and reflexology, but Ms MacFarlane did not appear in court to refute Strathclyde Police's allegations.

Sheriff Susan Raeburn ruled Ms MacFarlane was not "an interested party" under the terms of the Antisocial Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004 because she was not a licence holder of the premises.

Closure order

It is the first closure order for a commercial premises obtained by Strathclyde Police and only the force's second ever such order.

The first was granted against a man who was thrown out of his flat in Glasgow's Shawlands area in September last year for subjecting his neighbours to years of misery.

David Haith was given two-and-a-half hours to clear out of his one-bedroom property after a catalogue of anti-social behaviour.

The first closure order in Scotland was granted in January last year at Leven, Fife, against teenager Scott Wallace, whose flat was boarded up.