Lees tells of dramatic escape

Miss Lees has appeared in court in Darwin, Australia

Joanne Lees has described in detail how she escaped from the man who she says murdered her boyfriend, Peter Falconio, on a deserted Outback highway.

The 32-year-old care worker, from Brighton, was answering prosecutor's questions at the murder trial of Bradley Murdoch, 47, at the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin.

The sequence of events she outlined is as follows:

She is travelling with Mr Falconio in their VW Kombi camper van from Alice Springs to Darwin when Mr Falconio notices a four wheel drive following close behind. He says he wishes the vehicle would overtake them.

Ms Lees says she hid under a bush near the scene of the attack

The four wheel drive pulls alongside their van and the driver, who Miss Lees says is Bradley Murdoch, signals to them to pull over. Mr Falconio stops, despite Miss Lees asking him not to. He gets out of the van to talk to the man.

She overhears Mr Falconio talking about sparks coming from the camper van's exhaust. Mr Falconio asks her to rev the engine. Then she hears a sound from the back of the van like a car backfiring - or a gunshot.

Moments later the attacker appears at her window brandishing a silver gun. He asks her to switch the engine off, but she is shaking too much. He leans across her and turns off the engine himself.

Miss Lees tries to escape through the passenger door, but he puts the gun to her temple and says "put your head down and your hands behind your back". He ties her hands, forces her out of the Kombi and bundles her into his own van.

The jury was shown pictures of the couple's camper van

She is put in the front of the van at first, where there is a dog. Then the attacker forces her into the back of the van. She starts to believe she is going to be raped and she hears scraping noises coming from the outside, as if the attacker is moving something.

She starts to scream and calls out to Mr Falconio, but the attacker comes back and tells her to shut up or he will shoot her.

In the back of the van, Miss Lees manages to sit up straight. She sees an opening and edges towards it, managing to hang her legs over and drop to the ground. "It made a crunching noise on the gravel and then I just ran," she says.

Realising she could not outrun her attacker, she hides under a bush, crouching with her head to her knees and her hands behind her back, using her hair to cover her knees.

Jurors were also shown injuries to Miss Lees after the alleged attack

While she waits in the darkness she hears the man come close to her, and later the lights of one of the vehicles are switched on. Then one vehicle is driven away. Later she hears the man return and thinks he has come back to look for her. But the second vehicle starts up and is driven away.

After "a very long time" Miss Lees stands up and walks to the road, where she flags down a lorry. The drivers free her hands and make a brief search for Mr Falconio before taking her to safety and calling the police.