Woman tells of outback struggle in Australia

The scene of the alleged murder of Peter Falconio

The scene of the alleged murder of Peter Falconio

British tourist Ms Joanne Lees screamed, kicked and punched at a lone gunman as she fought for her life in the Australian outback in 2001, a court heard today.

She believed the man had shot her boyfriend, Peter Falconio, whose body has never been found.

"I was trying to hit him or punch him in the crotch," Ms Lees said in evidence to a Darwin court about what happened to her and Mr Falconio three years ago, when a driver flagged them down on a lonely outback highway in the Northern Territory.

Ms Lees came face-to-face in court with the Australian man charged with murdering Mr Falconio. The magistrates court hearing will determine whether Mr Bradley Murdoch is sent to trial for Mr Falconio's murder and Ms Lees's abduction. He has not entered a plea.

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I turned around to look through the window and I saw a man standing there with a gun
Joanne Lees

Mr Murdoch studied a large folder of court documents while an emotional Ms Lees gave her evidence. The two rarely had eye contact across the courtroom.

Ms Lees told the court of her carefree holiday travelling around Australia in a Volkswagen van with her boyfriend, sometimes sleeping on the side of the road in the outback.

On July 14th, 2001, they smoked a joint of marijuana as they watched an outback sunset and later drove off towards Darwin on a moonless night.

Along the road a motorist pulled his four-wheel drive truck alongside their van and waved for them to stop. The man said he had seen sparks coming from the van's exhaust and walked to the rear of the van with Mr Falconio, the court heard.

"I heard a bang like the sound of a vehicle backfiring. The sound of a gunshot," Ms Lees said. "I turned around to look through the window and I saw a man standing there with a gun." Ms Lees never saw Falconio again.

The gunman, silver revolver in his right hand, then pushed Ms Lees into the passenger seat of the van and began tying her hands behind her back with electrical cables and tape, the court was told.

She fought back, but stopped when he placed the gun against her head. "He seemed to be all over me and around me," Ms Lees said.

Ms Lees was then forced out of the van and into the dirt. The gunman straddled her as she lay face down and tried to bind her feet but Lees again fought back.

Her struggling prevented him from gagging her with tape, which became entangled in her hair. The gunman pushed her into his truck and put a canvas sack over her head.

"I was shouting for Pete and shouting for help," Ms Lees said, adding that she yelled at the gunman asking if he wanted money or whether he was going to rape her.

"He came back and told me to be quiet and if I didn't he'd shoot me," Ms Lees said.

Still she demanded to know: "Have you shot my boyfriend?". The gunman remained silent, pre-occupied with something on the side of the road, Ms Lees said.

Ms Lees slowly slid herself out the back of the truck and made a dash for nearby bushes as the gunman chased her.

Cowering like a child, she curled up under a bush in the pitch black outback as the gunman hunted her by torchlight.

Eventually the gunman abandoned his search. Ms Lees said she heard the man drag something in the gravel and then drive off.

For hours, Ms Lees was too scared to move from beneath the low-lying bush. Finally she plucked up the courage to run to the other side of the highway, hoping to flag down a passing driver.

Ms Lees let a few cars pass until a large truck came down the highway, its lights ablaze. She ran beside the truck before it eventually stopped and she ran up to the driver, the court heard.

The driver unhooked his load and drove Ms Lees back along the highway in a vain search for Mr Falconio before he took her to police in nearby Barrow Creek. The hearing continues.