Sgt Andrew Carr picking up some of the needles

A MOUNTAIN of used needles and drugs paraphernalia greeted police officers arriving at an address in Moredon.

More than 100 blood-filled dirty syringes littered the house in Moredon Park. Police described the scene as one of the worst drug dens they have ever seen. It came just a day after officers raided a crack house in Freshbrook.

Three men were arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs.

Officers from the North and West Swindon neighbourhood policing teams served a warrant on the address at 6am yesterday.

When they entered the house three men were found dozing in the living room, with used needles poking into the sofa and armchair around them. The room was littered with drugs paraphernalia, a mound of needles and their wrappers were on the floor next to the sofa and spoons, used to cook heroin before injecting it, lay on the coffee table.

Sgt Andrew Carr said: "This has been another successful warrant resulting from information from the community through the local community support officers.

"In the scale of what we find on this sort of warrant, this is one of the worst I have encountered.

"This case is pretty bad, particularly because of the number of needles full of blood, which pose a health risk to people visiting as well as themselves.

"It was a highly dangerous situation for officers entering the property because of the sheer number of needles.

"We did use a sniffer dog, but had to take extreme care not to let him near the big pile of syringes, and took him back out again in case he got jabbed."

Sgt Carr explained that the pungent aroma in the house was the combined fumes of heroin and crack as well as cannabis, combined with the smell of congealed blood and general dirt.

Officers found numerous plastic bags used to hold drugs and pipes and bongs used for smoking.

On the coffee table was a bowl full of dirty brown water, which officers said would have been drained out of a pipe for smoking crack cocaine.

All three men were searched. One had a substance believed to be heroin on him. The other two were thought to be carrying cannabis. All three were arrested on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs.

Police officers had to take extreme care while searching the address not to touch any of the exposed points and had to call for extra "sharps bins" to be brought in to safely dispose of all of the contaminated waste.

At least 100 syringes were taken to Gablecross police station for destruction.

Specialist cleaners from Swindon council will conduct a through clean-up of the address today.

7:00pm Wednesday 28th November 2007

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