Police doubts over outback murder story

Significant doubts over Joanne Lees's account of her ordeal at the hands of the gunman accused of murdering her boyfriend Peter Falconio emerged today.

A detective admitted in court that extensive police inquiries had been unable to identify the model of vehicle to match the one described by Miss Lees as being driven by accused drifter Bradley John Murdoch.

Cross-examined by defence counsel Grant Algie, Superintendent Jeanette Kerr also conceded that experts had been unable to identify the silver revolver with scrolling along the barrel described by Miss Lees as the one which the gunman held to her head.

Questions were raised to about Miss Lees's injuries and her ability to have overheard a conversation between the gunman and Mr Falconio while the engine of their campervan was still running.

Electrical tape which Miss Lees claimed had been round her ankle had been found. But it was only 70cms long, insufficient to go around her ankle.

Furthermore aboriginal trackers brought in by police found that nobody had stayed in the spot under a tree, where Miss Lees claimed she sat for five hours. No footprints other than those of Miss Lees had been found at the scene and there was no forensic evidence of a body having been dragged anywhere "be it Mr Falconio or anyone else", said Mr Algie.

Supt Kerr agreed. Mr Algie said Miss Lees did not suffer any frostbite from being in the outback for five hours overnight which experts said would have happened.

Finally Supt Kerr agreed with Mr Algie that further interviews were prompted because linguistic experts who had played audio tapes of Miss Lees' interviews advised police that there could be vital details missing from Miss Lees's narrative.

Supt Kerr told the court Miss Lees underwent hypnosis in a bid to trap the gunman. She said that two hypnotherapy sessions were arranged for Ms Lees in Alice Springs in the days after the incident in which Mr Falconio, 28, from Huddersfield, was murdered on 14 July, 2001, at Barrow Creek in the isolated Northern Territory.

Asked by Mr Algie why a hypnosis session was organised for Miss Lees, she said: "It was an attempt to try and illicit more information from Miss Lees in relation to the incident at Barrow Creek." She was giving evidence in the third week of a pre-trial committal hearing in which 45-year-old mechanic Murdoch is charged with the murder of Mr Falconio and the kidnap and aggravated assault with a gun of Ms Lees, 30, who now lives in Hove, Sussex.

Mr Falconio's body has never been found.

Earlier a detective described four vehicles belonging to Mr Murdoch which he examined as part of investigations into the disappearance of Falconio. He said two of the complete vehicles had been extensively modified. Yesterday the court heard from a former girlfriend of Murdoch that a picture of a mystery man at a truck stop convinced her he was the Most Wanted suspect police wanted to interview.

Office worker Beverly Anne Allan, 42, told the hearing how mechanic Murdoch dramatically altered his appearance and made radical alterations to his four-wheel drive Toyota utility truck.

The hearing continues.