A terrified mother has to wait six months to find out if she has been infected after she was stabbed with a syringe full of blood in a public toilet in High Wycombe.

Sarah Eacott-Broun, who lives in Aylesbury, was visiting the town centre with her ten-year-old daughter on Saturday when she stopped off in the toilets at Dovecot car park at around 4pm.

As she reached for the toilet roll, Sarah was pricked with a used needle that fell out of the holder.

Recalling the “horrifying” moment, she said: “My daughter had been at Explore Learning and I was going to go to McDonald’s and use those toilets, but we were in a rush to come back home so I thought it would be ok.

“I sat down to use the toilet, reached for the toilet paper and I got pricked with a blood-filled syringe. It was absolutely horrifying.”

Sarah praised the “amazing” Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) who helped her following the shocking incident at the toilets, which are maintained by Wycombe District Council.

She said: “The two PCSOs who came to help me were wonderful. I was standing there telling people not to go in there.”

The PCSOs then had to dispose of the needle themselves, using a gardening glove and a Waitrose carrier bag, and waited with Sarah for two hours for an ambulance that did not show up.

In the end, they took her to Wycombe Hospital where she had to have a number of tests and vaccines – but the hospital did not have a hepatitis shot so Sarah had to travel to Stoke Mandeville to have it.

She now has to wait six months to find out if the used syringe has had a lasting impact on her health.

She said: “It has been really awful. Obviously the council knows there is a problem with drugs at the toilet because there are sharp boxes in there.

“If that had been my ten-year-old daughter using the toilet, it doesn’t bear thinking about. If it had happened to her, I couldn’t be responsible for my actions.”

Catherine Spalton, spokesman for Wycombe District Council, said the toilets had been attended by the cleaning team four times on Saturday and said the toilet roll holders are locked and only opened if there is no toilet roll visible in them.

She said: “We were shocked to hear what happened to Sarah at the weekend and of the distress that this has caused her.

“We will be reviewing with the police what happened and if anything needs to be done to further reduce the likelihood of something like this happening again.”