Outback hunt: Police following 'hundreds' of leads

Police in Australia are following hundreds of leads in the search for a man who attacked a British couple travelling around the continent.

A Northern Territory police spokeswoman said today that they had ‘‘hundreds’’ of leads to follow up following the release of an E-fit of the suspected attacker.

South Australia police yesterday mounted an air search of a desert area more than a hundred miles from the scene of the attack after a reported sighting of the suspect.

A spokesman for South Australia police said: ‘‘We were able to confirm very quickly that it was not the suspect.’’

In her first interview since the attack, Miss Lees yesterday said: ‘‘Everyone can use their imagination about what it was like for me that night, but I was determined to escape and I feel very lucky to survive.’’

Former travel agent Miss Lees, who has been under police guard since the shooting, said: ‘‘I honestly do not believe this man would have let me go. He really needs to be captured. I do not think he would hesitate to do it again.’’

After escaping, Miss Lees scrambled into the bush, where she evaded capture for four hours until managing to flag down a passing truck driver.

The driver, Rodney Adams, said: ‘‘I never want to see anything like that again. She was in an appalling state.’’

He said she threw her arms around him and asked where her boyfriend was.

‘‘She sobbed, ‘I want my mum’,’’ said Mr Adams.

Miss Lees’ stepfather Vincent James, 58, was set to arrive in Alice Springs tomorrow.

Commander Max Pope of the Northern Territories Police said the investigation would be ‘‘stumbling’’ without Miss Lees’s help.

‘‘She has been extremely helpful,’’ he said.

Despite searches by police, volunteers and Aborigine trackers, nothing had been found in the 900,000-kilometre expanse.

Helicopters, trackers and motorcyclists were continuing to search the area and fingerprint and forensic experts were also at the scene.

They were also searching vehicles at roadblocks set up between the towns of Katherine and Alice Springs.

Mr Falconio, a building surveyor, left Britain with Miss Lees, his girlfriend of five years, last November to go on a round-the-world trip.

The couple, who had been living in Brighton before the holiday, visited Asia before going on to Australia where they had been touring the country in a camper van.

Their orange van was found in bushland away from the Stuart Highway where the gunman had apparently driven it off the road, police said.