An underwater landslide is thought to have caused a small tsunami that sent holidaymakers and anglers scattering in Cornwall. Witnesses reported the sea being sucked out, or receding, before a wave struck the coast on Monday morning.

No damage was caused by the wave, thought to have been about 40cm (16in) high and causing a surge up to 90cm (3ft) by the time the seawater pushed into the Yealm estuary, 70 miles up the coast near Plymouth, Devon, but many people, along the south coast, up to Hampshire, were left baffled by the phenomenon.

There were reports that static electricity in the air at the time made people's hair stand on end.

The appeal by Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito against their conviction for the killing of the British student Meredith Kercher took a significant turn yesterday when independent, court-appointed experts dismissed as unreliable forensic evidence crucial to the prosecution case.

Two Rome University professors said there was no certainty that traces of DNA, found on a knife allegedly used in the murder, belonged to Kercher.
They added that a trace of Sollecito's DNA on Kercher's bra clip, the vital piece of evidence linking him to the murder scene, could have got there by contamination, as the defence team said at the trial.

The DNA traces on the knife, which were discovered by police in Sollecito's kitchen, appeared "unreliable in as much as [they were] not supported by scientifically validated analytic procedures", the experts' report said.