Outback ordeal Briton seeks £18,000

British tourist Joanne Lees, who was abducted as her boyfriend was shot in the Australian outback, is seeking compensation.

Ms Lees, 28, could collect up to £18,000 under an Australian government scheme for victims of crime. She set off a massive manhunt after telling police last July that she and Peter Falconio, 28, were on the Stuart Highway nearly 200 miles from Alice Springs when the killer struck.

A pool of Mr Falconio's blood was found but his body has still not been discovered. Ms Lees said she was tied up by the gunman but managed to escape from his pickup truck, hiding in the bush for six hours until he left.

She then stumbled onto the highway and flagged down a passing lorry. Police have made no arrests despite launching one of the biggest manhunts in Australian history.

According to court papers, compensation claims were filed last week in Alice Springs. Ms Lees, who claimed that police had at first treated her story as a hoax, has returned to Britain. Last month assistant police commissioner John Daulby, the man leading the hunt, revealed accounts by six witnesses which appeared to corroborate Ms Lees's story.

They spoke of the gunman's truck and the couple's camper van at or near the crime scene around the time of the shooting in the remote Northern Territory.

He also completely dismissed reports that a man claiming to be a friend of Mr Falconio's had come forward to say that Mr Falconio from Huddersfield, had staged his own disappearance as part of an insurance fiddle.

Mr Daulby said police investigations showed that Mr Falconio's personal insurance "was insignificant".

Ms Lees has returned to Hove, East Sussex, where she lived with Mr Falconio, a building contractor. She is back in her old job as a travel agent with Thomas Cook.

In February this year she was paid an estimated £50,000 to return to Australia with a film crew from the investigative programme Tonight With Trevor McDonald.