Outback hunt: Reconstruction completed

Today’s reconstruction of the Australian attack in which one tourist vanished and his partner was abducted, lasted three hours.

It involved taking a replica of the couple’s orange Kombi van to the spot where the attack was thought to have taken police.

A Northern Territory police spokeswoman said: ‘‘It is hoped the reconstruction might just trigger a detail that could prove helpful to the investigation. Joanne Lees has been very brave.’’

The spokeswoman added that they had ‘‘hundreds’’ of leads to follow up following the release of an E-fit of the suspected attacker.

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 she was ‘‘in an appalling state’’.

He said: ‘‘She sobbed, ‘I want my mum’.’’

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

Despite extensive searches nothing had been found in the 900,000-kilometre expanse.

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.