High-profile barrister looks into murder of Peter Falconio

A high-profile barrister best known for clearing the names of wrongly convicted killers has turned his attention to the notorious Outback murder of Peter Falconio.

It has been almost seven years since the British backpacker's girlfriend Joanne Lees told of the couple's terrifying ordeal at the hands of a crazed gunman on a remote highway between Darwin and Alice Springs.
Bradley John Murdoch was later jailed for life, and eight months ago failed in his final appeal.
But now Tom Percy QC has agreed to examine disputed DNA evidence that sealed the 48-year-old drug runner's fate.
And he could ask Australia's Attorney-General Robert McClelland to exercise his power to send the infamous case back to the appeal courts.

Mr Percy is best known for helping overturn the convictions of John Button and Darryl Beamish, who were wrongly jailed in the 1960s over the deaths of two women murdered by Perth serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke.
The barrister got involved in their cases after being approached by journalist Estelle Blackburn, whose book unearthed evidence casting doubt on their guilt.
And it was another true-crime writer and mutual friend, Robin Bowles, who asked Mr Percy if Murdoch's conviction could be affected by growing concerns over the accuracy of a controversial DNA technique used to prove his guilt.

Her 2005 book on the Falconio case - Dead Centre - (winner of the inaugural Davitt Award for non-fiction) was highly critical of Ms Lees' version of events.
"Robin asked Tom if there would be sufficient grounds to ask the Attorney-General to reopen the case should the doubts about the DNA testing be substantiated," said a legal source.
"That's the only way you can do it now that Murdoch has run out of appeals.
"He has agreed to have a look at it and provide an opinion on whether there is sufficient prospect for it to be worth applying to the AG on the basis of any new information."

Murdoch, who continues to protest his innocence, was convicted primarily because of traces of DNA found on Ms Lees' T-shirt, the gearstick of the couple's Kombi van and on cable-tie handcuffs used to restrain her.
In December a judge acquitted the only man accused over the 1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland that killed 29 people, and questioned the validity of the Low Copy Number (LCN) method of DNA testing.
It works by amplifying miscroscopic particles of DNA into a larger sample, but the uproar after the Omagh verdict prompted the UK's Home Office to commission a full review.

"Low copy DNA is inherently unreliable, it's junk science," Peter Corrigan, a defence solicitor in the Omagh case, told The Times newspaper. "This technique falsely implicated a teenager from Sussex in the Omagh bombing. If that boy had been from South Armagh he would have been imprisoned because of that false DNA result."
Although England's Crown Prosecution Service suspected the use of LCA DNA following the Omagh case, the technique has since been reinstated.

Mr Percy will await the outcome of the Home Office review before advising whether or not to approach the Attorney-General.
If Mr McClelland did order the case to be reopened Murdoch would most likely face a retrial, rather than being automatically acquitted.
A high-profile barrister best known for clearing the names of wrongly convicted killers has turned his attention to the notorious Outback murder of Peter Falconio.

It has been almost seven years since the British backpacker's girlfriend Joanne Lees told of the couple's terrifying ordeal at the hands of a crazed gunman on a remote highway between Darwin and Alice Springs.
Bradley John Murdoch was later jailed for life, and eight months ago failed in his final appeal.
But now Tom Percy QC has agreed to examine disputed DNA evidence that sealed the 48-year-old drug runner's fate.
And he could ask Australia's Attorney-General Robert McClelland to exercise his power to send the infamous case back to the appeal courts.

Mr Percy is best known for helping overturn the convictions of John Button and Darryl Beamish, who were wrongly jailed in the 1960s over the deaths of two women murdered by Perth serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke.
The barrister got involved in their cases after being approached by journalist Estelle Blackburn, whose book unearthed evidence casting doubt on their guilt.
And it was another true-crime writer and mutual friend, Robin Bowles, who asked Mr Percy if Murdoch's conviction could be affected by growing concerns over the accuracy of a controversial DNA technique used to prove his guilt.

Her 2005 book on the Falconio case - Dead Centre - was highly critical of Ms Lees' version of events.
"Robin asked Tom if there would be sufficient grounds to ask the Attorney-General to reopen the case should the doubts about the DNA testing be substantiated," said a legal source.
"That's the only way you can do it now that Murdoch has run out of appeals.
"He has agreed to have a look at it and provide an opinion on whether there is sufficient prospect for it to be worth applying to the AG on the basis of any new information."

Murdoch, who continues to protest his innocence, was convicted primarily because of traces of DNA found on Ms Lees' T-shirt, the gearstick of the couple's Kombi van and on cable-tie handcuffs used to restrain her.
In December a judge acquitted the only man accused over the 1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland that killed 29 people, and questioned the validity of the Low Copy Number (LCN) method of DNA testing.
It works by amplifying miscroscopic particles of DNA into a larger sample, but the uproar after the Omagh verdict prompted the UK's Home Office to commission a full review.

"Low copy DNA is inherently unreliable, it's junk science," Peter Corrigan, a defence solicitor in the Omagh case, told The Times newspaper. "This technique falsely implicated a teenager from Sussex in the Omagh bombing. If that boy had been from South Armagh he would have been imprisoned because of that false DNA result."
Although England's Crown Prosecution Service suspected the use of LCA DNA following the Omagh case, the technique has since been reinstated.

Mr Percy will await the outcome of the Home Office review before advising whether or not to approach the Attorney-General.
If Mr McClelland did order the case to be reopened Murdoch would most likely face a retrial, rather than being automatically acquitted.