A DEVASTATED mum has started a petition calling for change after claiming her daughter was spiked by injection in a popular Dunfermline nightclub.

Nicola Smith's petition is calling for increased training for bar and nightclub staff and searches upon entry for clubgoers after she says her daughter was spiked by injection in Lourenzos in the early hours of Sunday, February 27.

Nicola, from Dunfermline, told the Press: “She thinks she had gone to toilet around 3am and must have passed out, she was aware of things happening around her but couldn’t do anything to help herself.

“The toilet monitor did not notice that the door was locked for nearly an hour and then started banging on the door at four o’clock in the morning telling her to get out, no acknowledgement that maybe she wasn’t just drunk.”

After she was ejected from Lourenzos, Nicola says her daughter, who she did not want to name, was unconscious outside the club. 

Nicola said: “She came out of Lourenzos and knew instantly that something wasn’t right and managed to get to a group of girls she didn’t know. They stayed with her, they’re angels.

“She had lost consciousness; she was unconscious on the ground when I got there.” 

Nicola said her daughter was looked after by a group of young ladies, a young man and one bouncer who recognised the signs of spiking. The group made sure Nicola’s daughter was safe and called her parents and an ambulance.

Due to long wait times at the hospital, Nicola decided to take her daughter home, where she spent hours looking over her daughter. 

As a nurse with more than 20 years’ experience, Nicola had no trouble identifying the injection mark on her daughter’s arm, and spent the remainder of the night researching spiking by injection.

She told the Press: “I was doing a lot of research and they were saying if it’s a needle that you’ve been spiked with it’s the next few days that you realise because it gets sore or bruised. 

“It was the back of her arm, so we think someone has bumped into her deliberately, the police said that there were 600 folk in Lourenzos that night. The CID said they were looking at the CCTV.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We received a report of a possible spiking incident at a nightclub in Dunfermline on Sunday, 27 February.

Enquiries are being carried out and no further reports have been made to police.”

Nicola and her family now have a long road ahead of them, with her daughter undergoing months of tests and treatments. She will have three Hepatitis B vaccinations and will be tested in four months for HIV.

Nicola said: “She’s devastated in case she’s picked up anything that’s going to affect her the rest of her life. It’s just a waiting game, a nervous waiting game.”

Garry Haldane, councillor for Dunfermline Central, was made aware of the petition and said: “He’s set that up before he’s left the house or done it outside and discarded the drugs or whatever it is he’s injected her with.

“To inject drugs, that’s despicable. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that its funny or that they haven’t got anything else behind it. It’s deplorable.”

Nicola hopes that her petition will help introduce changes like those made in Manchester.

The city committed to an anti-spiking partnership which saw a roll-out of spiking test kits and have changed their licensing policy to ensure that licensees make efforts to protect against spiking on their premises.

Nicola’s daughter is now recovering from her experience. She said: “She’s here and we’ll just take it day by day and we’ll get there and what will be will be. It’s out of my hands.”

Lourenzos were contacted by the Press for a comment but did not respond.