Entwistle evacuated

After a day of gripping testimony from Neil Entwistle's father-in-law, proceedings at Middlesex Superior Court were beginning to wind down at 3pm today. 

A succession of construction industry workers had been on the witness stand testifying about the whereabouts of Joseph Matterazzo, whose gun was used to shoot Rachel and Lillian Entwistle, on the day of the killings.

Journalists from both sides of the Atlantic were beginning to gather in the press room to start filing the day's copy, knowing that the top line of the day had already come out. The mood was beginning to relax. 

Then flashing lights and an automated voice interrupted the air of concentration in the room - the building was being evacuated because of an emergency situation in the courthouse. To say the assembled reporters weren't keen to head out into the 95F heat of the day would be an understatement. 

But press, court staff, onlookers, lawyers and family members of Neil Entwistle eventually gathered in the car park in the late afternoon sun as two fire trucks pulled up, sirens blaring. The judge, jurors and Entwistle himself were the only faces from the courtroom not present with the general rabble outside. 

The alert was a false alarm and no one could quite work out where Entwistle was whisked away to, or whether in fact he was brought out of the building at all.