PARENTS fear children are being put at risk from discarded needles left lying around at two different locations in York city centre.

A mother said she had found needles in a churchyard that youngsters walked through to get to their playgroup.

And a father said his three-year-old son had discovered needles and drugs paraphernalia under bushes in a scene resembling a "modern day opium den".

Rebecca Bywater said she had seen several needles in the last three months as she had been walking with her two-year-old son Ruben to the play group at St Laurence's Church Hall in Lawrence Street.

"One time, a syringe was sticking out of the soil with the needle pointing upwards," she claimed.

She feared children running around could prick themselves on a needle and put themselves at risk of a serious illness.

She urged people using needles to dispose of them properly and warned other parents to beware of the risks. She also said she would like more to be done to collect such needles when left discarded.

Another person who attends the play group, Coral Fisher, said she had seen the needles and been concerned about the safety of children running around.

But when church warden Brian Fletcher was told of their comments by the Evening Press, he was amazed. "It's the first I have heard of this," he said.

"I am regularly up there and I've never seen any needles." Nor had the team of gardeners who worked in the churchyard once a week. But he said he would now be alert for the problem. "We'll keep an eye open for it," he said.

Meanwhile, a father has told how his three-year-old boy discovered needles, drugs litter and used clothing under a bush near a busy York car park.

The young boy ran into bushes leading to the St John's Street car park, off Lord Mayor's Walk, where he found dozens of needles and other drugs paraphernalia.

His father, a 36-year-old South Bank man, who asked not to be named, said: "I have never seen anything like it and I would not expect to see something like this in York.

"It looked as if people might have been living in there."

Updated: 12:09 Wednesday, September 18, 2002