Brighton mothers start petition after needle scare in park (From The Argus)

Brighton mothers start petition after needle scare in park

12:16pm Tuesday 22nd June 2010 in News By Ruth Lumley

The parents of two children stabbed by a needle in a public paddling pool have started a petition to have the area cleaned up.

Joanne Cantor, 37, and Kelly Turner, 27, took their children to The Level in Brighton on June 5.

Ms Cantor's daughter Courtney, 11, and Ms Turner's son Brandon, nine, were playing in the paddling pool when they were pricked by what they thought was a needle.

The children were taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, where they were given hepatitis jabs.

Doctors said they must return in three months for an HIV test.

To date there have been no recorded cases of someone being infected from a needlestick injury outside a hospital or doctors surgery because the virus does not survive for long outside the body.

However Brighton has one of the highest rates of HIV in the UK.

Ms Cantor said: "We are getting up a petition to get The Level cleaned up. We are more worried about them contracting hepatitis and don t want this to happen to anyone else."