A MAN "experimenting" with heroin discarded a syringe in a street with children nearby, York magistrates heard.

Dieter Jurgen Barr, 25, had just taken an overdose and rejected attempts by an ambulance crew to help him.

He was hallucinating and foaming at the mouth and walked off down Foss Islands Road in the middle of Saturday afternoon. As he did so, he dropped the syringe and a lemon juice bottle.

Members of the public, including children, heard him swearing to himself.

Barr, of Peaseholme Centre, York, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

Magistrates gave him a six-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £30 costs. They took into account that he had spent six hours in a police cell sobering up.

Steven Ovenden, prosecuting, said Barr objected to ambulance officers helping him at 3.20pm on waste land off Foss Islands Road.

For Barr, Colin Byrne said he was not a heroin addict, but had been mixing with heroin users that day and had "experimented" with using the drug.

Barr accepted that he was abusive, but he was not insulting anyone directly. He was angry because someone had stolen his wallet and he believed it had been taken by a heroin user.

Updated: 10:41 Thursday, October 18, 2001