LONDON, England (AP) — A British jury yesterday convicted a 44-year-old man of trying to recruit girls as young as 12 years old into prostitution in northern England.

The jury at Carlisle Crown Court also found Azad Miah guilty of paying for the sexual services of two teenage girls and running a brothel from his business, the now-closed Spice of India restaurant in the northern English city.

The case raised troubling questions about the initial police response to reports of harassment, as one of the victims testified to the court that she had initially spoken to officers about Miah, a Bangladeshi, three years before his arrest.

Miah, a married father of four, had denied all of the charges and claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy between the girls after he stopped giving them money.

He was convicted of inciting four girls into child prostitution between 2007 and 2011. He was cleared of the same charges against two others.

Judge Peter Hughes warned Miah he would face a “substantial” prison term when he is sentenced today.

Miah’s youngest victim told the court that she eventually gave up talking to police in 2008 about the takeaway owner pestering her for sex in exchange for cash because nothing was being done.

The court heard that a girl Miah was cleared of encouraging to have sex for money had also complained to police in 2008 that he persistently harassed her, but Cumbria police did not launch an investigation into Miah until Christmas 2010 after one of his victims discussed child prostitution with one of its “partnership agencies”.

The women’s testimony comes at a sensitive time for British police, who have recently been accused of failing to protect vulnerable children.

Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have apologised for delays in investigating a racially-sensitive case in northwest England that ultimately resulted in the convictions of nine men for luring girls as young as 13 into sex using alcohol and drugs.

In that case, one of the victims first spoke out in 2008, but prosecutors failed to press charges amid concerns that a jury might have questioned the girl’s credibility.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating why that decision was made.