SYRINGE FOUND Lucas Gardens SE5 - NR CONKERS

[Syph66]

*** SAFETY ALERT*** PLEASE CHECK FIRST WHEN FORAGING FOR CONKERS or PLAYING HIDE & SEEK

My 8-year-old son and his friends found a hypodermic syringe while collecting conkers in the bushes in Lucas Gardens today, after school.

We all had a huge shock.

Just a suggestion to parents to a)check first where your children are searching (I didn't) b) have 'that' chat with children about what not to touch and the consequences. If they're old enough to be free to forage alone for 20 mins they're old enough to have a grown-up chat with.

My little one is lively but sensible and yet he shot over to us holding up the syringe saying: "who wants an injection?" as though he'd found a toy from his old Doctor's box.

The park is otherwise so clean and we checked more needles afterwards.

We were so lucky that although Milo and his pal felt the point of the blood stained hypodermic, their skin was not broken. We put the syringe in a box in case we needed to go to A&E.

I will call the council just to make them aware - please be careful.

[Laur]

OMG, that is so frightening...I'm just so glad for you that your children are ok.

[Mustard]

When living in West Hampstead, I used to often find syringes in my front garden!

[SpringTime]

Yesterday my wife, daughter and I came home from holiday to find a man in our front courtyard - on our premises yet in view from the street. He was trying to hide himself away but not doing a great job of it.

Well, it can come as a bit of a shock to find someone on your property when you return from a trip. To make matters a lot worse, he was also injecting himself.

We addressed him, kept close to him (but not too close, of course) and he soon left. He was out of his mind of course.

This is in a road very close to Lucas Gardens.

Police were advised of course.

Pretty scary stuff - particularly with young children around.

(Addicts will often use lemons/citrus juice to clean their equipment. So if you see evidence of this lying around in bushes or in alleys then take care. The addict on our property left spent lemon behind but took his syringe, etc. with him.)