In answer to your comments however (I’ve underlined sections you might like to search for in the book) please let me state the following:

I have never said or implied, in my book and the hundreds of interviews I have done about this case, that Peter Falconio is alive. I certainly think he is dead.I have often stated that for the police to draw a long bow about the means of his death (.22 pistol) and the way he died (shot in the head) are speculative and not able to be substantiated. There is no body, no weapon, no cause of death and no witness to this alleged shooting. Therefore the police version is speculative.

During my investigations over two years of writing Dead Centre and since, I have found few ‘facts’ that support Joanne Lees’s story. This search for the truth was made more difficult as she changed aspects of the story quite often- giving seven different descriptions of the gunman’s dog, for example, none of which looked like Murdoch’s dog. The most amazing change was that she had always said, in statements and under oath at the committal, that she was put into the passenger seat of the gunman’s car and then while he was otherwise occupied, she wriggled through the space between the seats, dropped down from the tailgate and ran off into the bush. She said she could ‘hear the man behind her’. However upon being told the police had personally investigated over 4000 4WD white vehicles around Australia and found NOT ONE with a crawl-through space, her story to the jury went:’It’s a possibility that the man lifted the flap where he got the bag out [on the rear tray of the vehicle] and I was put in there.’ This evidence did away with the need for a crawl-through between the seats, which the jury never heard.

Re the bush density. I have been to that exact spot. It is scrubby mulga, spinifex grass and fallen branches from the mulga. There is no undergrowth except the spinifex grass.There is also a strong cattle-proof fence running 50m in from and parallel to, the highway. If Joanne could indeed ‘hear the man behind her’, as soon as she crouched under her bush he also would have heard immediately that she had stopped running and would be able to pinpoint her position in minutes. If by some chance an experienced bushman failed to do that, he could have just kept walking towards the sound and if he passed her (as she said he did) he would have encountered the fence in about ten strides, turned back, quartered the area he last heard her and found her within 10 minutes. As my ‘gunman’ did when we re-aenacted her exact description of the events (same time, place and time 2 years later) she said occurred on that night.

As to her injuries: The highway is paved with very sharp blue metal, not bitumen. Joanne had gravel scratches on her knees and elbows. No other injuries. I have the police photos taken at Barrow Creek. Dr Matthew Wright, who examined her at Alice Springs hospital the next day gave evidence from the notes he took on that examination that ‘a couple of small lacerations were dressed’. She made no mention of being hit in the temple and he did not observe any injuries other than the elbow and knee lacerations. As Murdoch told me, ‘If I’d punched her in the head I would have broken her jaw’. I believed him.

Various statements were made to me about Joanne’s state of mind at the time,including from profilers employed by the NT police, various police officers who’d spent time with Joanne, her former boss in Sydney, to name a few. The only ones I quoted were given by a police detective trained in psychology who spent dozens of hours with Joanne, probing the inaccuracies in her story; the hypnotist who is a qualified psychologist who conducted two sessions with Joanne on behalf of the NT police and when I told her I had a copy of her report to the police on those sessions agreed to let me quote her; and the opinion of a senior member of the NSW university psychology teaching staff, who was asked by the NT police to provide an opinion on Joanne’s demeanour during the famous interview she did with Martin Bashir on British TV. The police were willing to seek this opinion and I subsequently interviewed this woman, who expanded on her views to me. It is common practice for highly qualified people who know about human behaviour to view police interviews etc. to give an opinion. I also found a psychologist/grief counsellor who interviewed Paul Falconio and Joanne after they returned from Alice Springs to Sydney. His professional opinion agreed with the other three I quoted in my book, but I did not include it.

I have made no observations of my own about any disorders Joanne may or may not have. I saw her recently on the tenth anniversary of Peter’s disappearance, being chased by TV cameras in the UK. She looked pretty sad to me. I’m sure the incident at Barrow Creek, whatever happened, has ruined her life. I hope that’s not a silly comment!.

All the best,

Robin