Used needle found in school playground

A playground at a primary school in Wrexham had to be evacuated after a used needle was found by a child there on Tuesday.

It happened at St Mary's Catholic Primary.

Headteacher there Kathy Jones says the Police were immediately called, the child was unharmed and a police liaison officer has now been into the school to do a special safety talk.

Mrs Jones said:

"The safety and wellbeing of our children and staff are of paramount importance to us and as soon as the needle was reported to us our caretaker undertook a thorough search of the well established walled off border by the playground that was not accessed by children and no further evidence of drug paraphernalia was found.

"The police were then informed immediately.

"Later, during playtime one of our younger children found a needle in the perimeter of the nursery playground which was extremely worrying.

"Children were removed from the area and the staff conducted a full search of the playground.

"The police liaison officer attended school to give the children a "don't touch, tell" talk."

Mrs Jones added:

"It is extremely sad that drug addicts choose to use the locked school grounds to take their drugs and discard their needles without regard to anyone else.

"The caretaker is always very vigilant in his daily health and safety check around the school but unfortunately on this occasion the needles were well concealed.

"We will continue to work with the police to do everything we can to prevent addicts entering the school grounds and recklessly discarding their needles."