A MUM says she will spend the next few months nervously waiting to see if her four-year-old son contracts a deadly disease after he played with a syringe discarded by drug users near his home.

The mother of two, who does not wish to be named, has had to put her son on a course of treatment against hepatitis following the shocking discovery.

She says she only found out that her son had picked up the syringe when it fell out of his clothing after being washed.

When she asked him where he had found it, he took her to a spot not 100 yards from their home on Lancaster Avenue, Orford. He then said that it had still had the needle attached to it when he found it - and he had put it in his mouth.

The worried woman searched the ground and found two more used syringes, which she took to the nearby borough council offices.

"The doctor said the treatment was just a precaution, but he was quite concerned at first," she said.

The mum said she had been told by one person that it could take anything up to seven years for any illness to show. She said: "It's going to take months to get over the shock. Someone told me it could be five to seven years before any trace of illness appears.

"I just want to tell people in Warrington that these things are going on near their homes. I won't let my children play outside any more."

Head of environmental health for Warrington Borough Council, Andrew Gilbert, said: "Syringes are found from time to time by members of the public, and we do collect them if they are reported. The people who drop them are the issue."

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