Lincoln City Centre
Mum of two left 'shocked and upset' after finding people injecting drugs in Lincoln car park
'It was like something out of Trainspotting'
Matthew LodgeTrainee Reporter
Sam Curtis came across three people taking drugs in the car park (Image: Lincolnshire Live)
A mum of two says she has been left "shocked and upset" after coming across people injecting themselves with drugs in a Lincoln car park.
Samantha Curtis had parked in the Lucy Tower Street multi-storey car park on Tuesday afternoon, October 8, when she came across three people taking drugs.
The 49-year-old Echo columnist said the group were injecting drugs into their arms when she found them on the stairs.
"There were two there - you could see the syringes sticking out of their arms - and another man at the bottom of the stairs asking questions like 'is it hurting?'" she said.
"They all looked like they were in their late teens. It was a bit bizarre. I've never witnessed a scene like that.
"To be honest it was like something out of Trainspotting - it wasn't glamorous."
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Samantha, who was on her way to pick up her six-year-old son, said she walked in the other direction when she came across the trio.
"For a split second I was just going to walk straight past them, but I didn't," she said.
"I didn't even wait for a lift. I went to the other side of the car park.
"You hear about it happening but until you actually see it... it's really quite shocking and upsetting. I felt really upset about it.
"They weren't intimidating but you wouldn't walk through them. I know a lot of people come down really hard on drug users but I just felt really shocked at the desperation of the situation."
Lucy Tower Street multi-storey car park (Image: Google Street View)
Samantha says this is the first time she had seen anything like this happen in this car park.
"I've never seen anybody in there before and I use this car park quite regularly - about three or four times a month," she said.
"They used to do it in the NCP car park but you can't get in without a car now so I think they've migrated to here.
"It's just round the corner from Addaction [a drug addiction charity], which is slightly ironic."
She says she thinks the sighting is part of a larger, city-wide issue with drugs.
"There's a real problem with people using drugs," she said.
"Even on Sunday there was a few people arguing in front of the Nationwide just shouting at each other about drugs.
"I love a bit of retail therapy, I love coming into town, but I think it does put people off because it's not nice and you don't get that when you're ordering online."
In July, police revealed that more than 250 people had been arrested and over 7kg of the drug Spice seized as part of a drug crackdown in the city.
Lincolnshire Police set up a team to deal with drugs after the issue hit national headlines last summer.
Locals regularly complained of people openly taking drugs in the streets - and firms said that drug-taking 'zombies' were ruining trade.
But police said in the summer that the situation had since improved, and emphasised that officers had taken 7,000 Spice deals off the streets.
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