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A mother was left disgusted after discovering human faeces besides a swimming pool at a popular water park.

Justine Bell visited Wet ‘n’ Wild, in North Shields, as a summer treat for her 10-year-old daughter Millie Doughty before she returned to school.

However, just minutes in to the visit, Ms Bell was left sickened as she had to grab Millie to keep her from stepping in human faeces at the foot of one the water park’s popular slides.

She said: “It was just so dirty. I went to pick my daughter up and there at the bottom of the flume was faeces.

“She nearly stepped in it. It was horrendous.

“We told a lifeguard and he just stood there grinning.”

Ms Bell, of Walkergate, hit out at the lack of urgency from staff and said far from treating the matter as a priority the staff seemed to be “joking around”.

Along with Millie and her partner Christopher Jackson, she left the pool immediately and demanded a refund.

She added: “Millie had been going on about going all summer but when we did it was dreadful.

“There was litter everywhere, cans of Coke in the pool.

“We paid £25 - it wasn’t cheap and the cleanliness was a real cause for concern.”

The pool reopened last August after a £1.1m revamp but it was forced to close just days later due to problems with water temperatures and air quality which left a number of swimmers feeling unwell.

A spokesman for the firm said: “We can confirm a customer reported to lifeguards that there was faeces on the floor next to the bottom of one of our flumes.

“The incident was reported to the supervisor and the faeces promptly cleaned up and the floor area disinfected. There was no indication that this had originated from inside the flume, and faeces was not found in the pool itself.”

The firm refunded the £25 admission costs but Ms Bell added she is in no rush for a return visit.

Sally Kurton, contract manager at Serco, which runs Wet ‘n’ Wild, added: “The health and safety of our customers is our top priority, especially with so many being families with young children.

“Our staff work hard to maintain a high standard of cleanliness at Wet’n’Wild and take any complaints very seriously, aiming to deal with them promptly and effectively.

“We are sorry that on this occasion a customer felt we fell short of these high standards.

“We have already provided her with a full refund as a gesture of goodwill and would like to offer her family free entry on their next visit.”