A NEW law to criminalise leaving used drug needles in a way that puts the public at risk is being proposed by a North-East MP today.

A Bill urging the Government to crackdown on drug users who discard dirty syringes will be presented by Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, after a four-year-old constituent was pricked by a used needle in a play park.

Riley Ashton ran to his mother clutching four needles after finding them near a playground alongside his six-year-old friend as they played at the site off Tees Street, in Loftus, east Cleveland.

Riley’s mother, Paige, was horrified when her son said: “Mummy, look at these stabby needles” and she saw he had pricked his thumb on one of the used syringes in October 2017.

The four-year-old boy was feared to have contracted HIV or Hepatitis B and faced a gruelling four-month wait and a series of blood tests to eventually find out he was clean.

The needles had been left in a children’s den in the park by a heroin addict and the incident led the Ashton family’s MP to review what criminal sanctions are in place for drug users putting the public at risk.

The only offence anyone can be charged with for discarding used hypodermic needles is general littering, which carries a fine if found guilty.

Mr Clarke is set to argue in Parliament today that “the moral difference – both in intention and consequence – between discarding used drug needles and, say, a sweet wrapper, is patently clear, and yet the law, as it stands, fails to recognise this difference.”

Speaking ahead of the debate, the Middlesbrough South and east Cleveland MP, said: “The threat of discarded needles is real and growing in Redcar and Cleveland.

“Most drug users manage to dispose of them safely, but a minority do not and I believe the law should be able to hold them to account.

“It’s hard to believe what happened to Riley wasn’t deliberate and this kind of wickedness deserves criminal sanction.”

Mr Clarke will present his Bill to propose a new law at around 12.15pm today in the House of Commons and will have ten minutes to argue his case.