A father was horrified to find his son playing with used syringes left in an abandoned car.

A box of hypodermic needles, clothes, toys and Harry Potter books were inside the Vauxhall Cavalier parked behind Steven Farley's home in Skelmersdale Walk, Crawley, for the past week.

The box of needles bears the name NHS Direct but no other information to suggest who the car belongs to or where it came from.

The car was reported abandoned to Crawley Borough Council last Tuesday but it was only on Sunday that Mr Farley discovered his ten-year-old son Adam with the syringes.

He said: "It was a worry when the local kids were attracted to the toys in the car and started playing around with it.

"I couldn't believe it when Adam and a couple of friends found the box of hypodermic needles. They seem to be used syringes. Adam and the other boys assured me they hadn't pricked themselves but it's worrying to think what could have happened.

"I've taken the syringes and hidden them away."

Mr Farley called Crawley Borough Council but was told no one was available to take action about the F-registration car until today because of the bank holiday.

A spokesman for NHS Direct said it had launched an investigation into where the needles might have come from and had alerted the police.

He said: "NHS Direct doesn't give out needles so we're not quite sure what has happened here. It may just be that the box has an NHS Direct label on but the syringes are from somewhere else."

A Crawley Borough Council spokeswoman said: "Like everywhere else in the country at the moment, we do have a problem with abandoned cars.

"We do have to go through the legal formalities, unfortunately, which means we do have to wait seven days before we can remove a car.

"We deal with abandoned cars as quickly as possible and the launch of our community wardens scheme at the end of September should help us step up our response to things like this."

She said there was a freephone number for residents to report dumped cars but staff were likely to have been unavailable over the bank holiday weekend.