MORE shocking evidence came to light today about the worsening problem of drugs and associated crime in York.

And the spectre of rough sleeping and homelessness reared its head once more.

The Evening Press has learned that addicts are using a city centre yard as a "shooting alley", where they are injecting themselves and leaving needles.

The grimness of the scene is compounded by the fact that it is used as a regular haunt by people sleeping rough.

It all happens only yards from the heart of the city centre in Fossgate.

Glen Mallot, a shopworker at the Up and Running store in the street, said: "When we went round there was a group of people huddled. They were sleeping and there was a pram there with a baby in.

"A couple got up and started to move away - they were all out of it.

"They were there for the rest of the day. I could hear the baby crying, which is the sad part of the whole thing.

"You also can see tin foil from the drugs and hypodermic needles on the floor."

Today, we found two men sleeping rough in a secluded area behind Fossgate in the same alley, clogged with rubbish and beer bottles.

There was no suggestion that either had been taking drugs.

Other shop and office staff working nearby say groups of addicts use the same area five to six times a day to pump themselves full of narcotics.

A BBC documentary being screened tonight will claim that about 80 per cent of York's city centre shoplifting is drug-related.

BBC One's Inside Out team can be seen shadowing police in a crackdown on shoplifting and street crime.

It says the city has been flooded with plain-clothes officers to detect offences linked with drugs.

Workers at businesses which back on to Fossgate say it has been used by addicts for months.

Jo O'Reagan, of Lloyds Legal Costs, said: "The other day there was a group of three lads with a baby, which was about six months old. One was holding the baby and the other was tying shoe laces around his arm, pumping himself full of drugs."

"We look out of the window at work and we can see two sides of York - tourists in the Merchant Adventurers' Hall gardens and these smack-heads."

Gillian Macfarlane, the manager of Up and Running, said that on one occasion she was unloading stock from the back entrance when one of four men who had been sleeping outside stood up and vomited.

She said: "It was really frightening, but I had no alternative but to be there as I had to unload my car."

Sergeant Mark Goulding, of York Police, said the area was known to be used by drug-users and was regularly patrolled.

He said: "I would advise anyone to report drug-users to the police and not to approach them."

PC Martin Metcalf, who is followed by the cameras for the BBC documentary, says: "York is a lovely place, but there are some people who are making life a misery in the city centre.

I reckon 80 per cent of shoplifting is linked with drugs. Our aim is to arrest people and get them prosecuted."

The programme discovers that about half of those people arrested are wanted by police for breach of bail conditions and other crimes.

One shoplifter says he funds his £30-a-day drug addiction through begging, shoplifting and burglary.

He says: "It's a bit like cat and mouse really. You have to get into the shops and take whatever you need and they have to stop us."

Updated: 14:46 Monday, October 07, 2002