A GRANDMOTHER was horrified when she took her young grandchildren to use a public toilet to find it covered in blood with used needles thrown around the floor.

Jane Wootten, 58, from Church Street, Lacock, took Joshua, four, and seven-year-old Thomas into the toilets near the Borough Parade car park in Chippenham and was disgusted by what they found.

She said: "It was horrendous. I was not expecting that and I was absolutely horrified.

"Obviously someone had been using it for drugs but I couldn't believe the amount of blood in there, it was everywhere.

"What if a child had gone in there and picked up one of these needles? It doesn't bear thinking about."

Mrs Wootten and her daughter Emma Salmon, 35, who works at The George in Lacock, had gone to the village school to pick up Thomas at the end of the school day and had decided to go into Chippenham to do some shopping.

Joshua needed to go to the toilet so the family parked at Borough Parade and Mrs Salmon went to a nearby shop while her mother took the boys to the toilet.

She said inside the toilet block, which is owned and run by North Wiltshire District Council, there was blood over the floor, walls and the toilets themselves and about four or five needles lying around.

"At first I though someone must have had a miscarriage there was so much blood. It was enough to make you feel physically sick," she said.

Mrs Wootten had to take her grandsons out of the building and to let Joshua go to the toilet outside.

She then found herself trying to explain what was wrong to her oldest grandson, who was very upset by the incident.

"Joshua was just hopping around because he wanted to go to the lavatory, that was all that was on his mind, but Thomas was asking what had happened.

"He was really traumatised when his mum came back."

Mrs Wootten had to go into hospital for a minor operation the day after the discovery on November 8, but reported it to the district council five days later, when she was back at home.

She said she has since phoned them on several occasions to find out if something is being done to ensure no-one else is put in that situation, but has heard nothing back.

On her first call she said she was told the best thing to do was to use the privately-run toilets in the Emery Gate shopping centre instead.

She said: "I think it is disgraceful. It needs someone to put their hands up and say yes, there is a problem and we are doing something about it' but they are not."

Cllr Carol O'Gorman, leader of the district council, said staff were sent out to clean up the toilets as soon as they received a call telling them what had happened.

"It's the first time I can recall we have found such a mess," she said. "We're now checking the toilets morning, noon and evening. The police were also notified."