FOREST plant hire boss Philip Roberts has been ‘locked down’ in the Las Vegas hotel where 64-year-old Stephen Paddock killed 59 bystanders and injured 500 others.

Mr Roberts, 57, from Drybrook, who runs Roberts Plant Engineeers in Huntley, was staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel when the gunman opened up on an open air country music festival across the road.

Speaking directly from the Luxor Hotel to which he had been evacuated by police, Mr Roberts said: “We were on the 15th floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel when the shooting started.

“The gunman was above us on the 32nd floor so we couldn’t see him.

“At first we didn’t know it was gunfire as, being Las Vegas, there are always fireworks going off, but pretty soon there were sirens going and police cars everywhere and helicopters above us.

“Almost immediately we were locked down in our hotel

room. The police would’t even let us downstairs for a coffee.

“And in the morning we were evacuated into the Luxor Hotel next door. Now we’ve been moved out of there and I don’t now where we‘re going next. I just want to get back into the Mandalay Bay to get all my stuff.”