A MAGISTRATES court's security guard was stabbed by a hypodermic syringe as he searched a trial defendant.

He has been told it could be more than four months before he knows results from blood tests.

A court spokesman said: "He is horrified by what has happened."

The guard had been working in the public waiting area of York Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon when a man set off an alarm on a walk-through metal detector.

Gordon Lees, the Justice Clerk for North Yorkshire, said: "The guard was alerted to the fact that somebody was carrying metal and he asked the man if he had anything on him that might set off the alarm. He said he had not.

"The guard was suspicious and he began a search. He lifted the man's jacket and immediately felt a prick in his finger which had drawn blood. It turned out the man had been carrying a needle and the guard had impaled his finger on it.

"The man, who was attending court as a defendant in a trial, ran off but later returned to the court."

A York Police spokeswoman said he had been arrested and interviewed by police, and has now been bailed.

Updated: 16:23 Thursday, February 14, 2002