A MOTHER faces an anxious wait to learn whether her son has contracted any diseases from a dirty needle found on a prison toilet floor.

Three-year-old Rhyce Pope has been tested for HIV and hepatitis after stabbing his thumb on the needle at HMP Elmley at Eastchurch on Sheppey.

His mother Donna Butler, 23, says she is furious at the lack of concern shown by prison staff and dreads the outcome of the blood tests.

She said: "I am very angry and distressed about it. They weren't very helpful at all."

Miss Butler, from Chatham, was waiting outside the on Saturday, March 13, while friends visited an inmate. When Rhyce needed the toilet, she took him into the visitors' reception toilet where he picked up the discarded needle.

When she realised there was blood pouring from his finger, she asked prison staff for help. She claims she was told that the cleanliness of the toilets was not their responsibility.

She stressed: "I don't know how they can say that. They were talking as if they were used to that kind of thing happening."

Rhyce was examined by a prison nurse before being taken by his mother to Sheppey Community Hospital for a tetanus jab and to be bandaged up.

He underwent further blood tests at Medway Maritime Hospital but it will be at least three months before he can be given the all clear.

Miss Butler added: "You just try to blot it out. I hope all the results will come back clear. I am going to complain about the prison staff, once I find out how to go about it."

A Prison Service spokesman said prison rules prevented medical staff from giving more than basic first aid to members of the public.

Special deposit boxes for needles such as those used by diabetics were available in the reception area. He added: "We very much regret what took place."