'Stalker' clue to outback attack

Joanne Lees took part in a reconstruction of the attack

Police investigating the disappearance of a British tourist in the Australian outback are looking at the possibility the gunman may have been stalking the man's girlfriend.

Peter Falconio, 28, from Hepworth, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, has been missing since Saturday night after an incident on a remote stretch of road in the Northern Territory.

Mr Falconio, and his girlfriend Joanne Lees, 27, stopped to help a man who was standing beside his camper van, which he claimed was broken down.

The couple were flagged down by the gunman on Saturday

Miss Lees said she heard what she thought was a gunshot moments after Mr Falconio got out of the van.

She said the mystery man then pulled her from the vehicle, tied her up and threw her into the back of his van.

She said she managed to escape and fled into the bush where she hid for several hours as the gunman searched for her with a dog and a torch.

Police are looking into the possibility the couple were followed and trapped by a stalker who was obsessed with Miss Lees, but say the theory's a "last resort".

Click here to see map of the outback

A psychological profile of the attacker is being prepared and experts have suggested the attacker was almost certainly a sexual psychopath.

Sydney University psychologist John Clarke, who prepares offender profiles for New South Wales police, said the attack may have taken years to plan.

He told the Daily Telegraph: "The main focus of this guy's thinking would have been his sexual fantasy of abducting a woman and keeping her for a long time as a sex slave.

"He coldly and calculatedly planned to eliminate the male and get the female for himself."

Police have released an e-fit of the gunman

Saturday's incident happened on a remote stretch of the Stuart Highway north of the town of Barrow Creek.

Faced with the task of finding the man in an area about four times the size of Britain, police have resorted to Aboriginal trackers in the hope of picking up a trail.

Radio Australia quoted the police as saying that the only footprints found at the scene had been confirmed as those of Miss Lees.

DNA samples from the highway where the attack happened have been checked against a national database.

But police said they did not match those among police records from the Northern Territory.

There have been more than 100 sightings of a man fitting the description of the man in the identikit.

One woman has come forward claiming to recognise the identikit.

She has told police she hitched a ride in the Northern Territory with the man and his dog but fled when he began arming himself with guns.

'No breakthrough'

But Northern Territory Police said it was not a "breakthrough" but just another sighting they were investigating.

Meanwhile Miss Lees, a travel agent, from Almondbury, near Huddersfield, is being comforted by her stepfather Vincent James, 58, who flew to Alice Springs to be with her after hearing of the incident.

Miss Lees has been praised by police for bravery after she took part in Wednesday's reconstruction, which lasted for three hours and involved a replica of the couple's orange camper van.

Mr Falconio's father Luciano has flown to Australia, and said he still hoped to find his son alive.

He said he would stay for "as long as it takes".

Click here to return