Outback abductee denies criticising police hunt

The girlfriend of a British man believed to have been shot in the Australian outback today denied reports that she had criticised police leading the hunt for his attacker.

Joanne Lees, 27, and Peter Falconio, 28, were held up by a gunman as they travelled in their camper van on a remote desert highway 175 miles north of Alice Springs.

The man flagged the couple down and Miss Lees, of Almondbury, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, heard what she thought was a gunshot.

The gunman then tied her up and threw her into the back of a van, but she managed to escape into the bush where she spent several hours hiding before raising the alarm, she told police.

Mr Falconio, of Hepworth, near Huddersfield, vanished.

As police, aided by Aboriginal trackers, mounted a search, they said the chances of finding him alive were bleak.

Miss Lees was today quoted in Australian newspapers complaining that she had been grilled for 18 hours by police on the morning she escaped from the gunman on July 14.

Mr Falconio’s brother Paul, who has flown out to Australia to help the search, read a statement on Miss Lees’s behalf.

He said: ‘‘The recent comments attributed to Joanne have not been made by her.

‘‘We know that Joanne worked long hours with police during the initial stages of the investigation but she was extremely anxious to assist police.’’

Miss Lees today stepped out in public for the first time since her ordeal.

Dressed in shorts, a light jumper and sunglasses, she went shopping in Alice Springs.

Shadowed by three plain-clothes police officers, Miss Lees wandered down Todd Mall, where she stopped to eat a snack in a cafe, before being driven away to a safe house.

Earlier today, police said the gunman may have evaded their road blocks and left the area.

Northern Territory Police Commander Max Pope said Mr Falconio’s killer could have found a way to get round the road blocks in his vehicle.

Mr Pope told a news conference: ‘‘While we feel that we moved very quickly to put the initial roadblocks in place, we have never discounted the possibility that the offender may have left the Northern Territory.’’

He said all roadblocks on major highways across the Territory were being removed after ‘‘serving their purpose’’.

He went on: ‘‘They provided us with an excellent way to inform the travelling public as to the identification of the alleged gunman.

‘‘It is always a possibility that the offender continues to lie low in the Northern Territory and will make his move once the roadblocks are down.’’