Joanne Lees

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section needs to be updated.
Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date.
Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Joanne Lees

Joanne Lees, (born 1975), is a British woman, notable for being the girlfriend of Peter Falconio, 28, at the time of his disappearance on a remote stretch of highway near Barrow Creek in outback Northern Territory, Australia on July 14, 2001. Lees was the chief crown witness in the subsequent murder trial of Bradley John Murdoch conducted in Darwin.

Lees met Falconio in a nightclub in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in 1996 and began living with Falconio the following year in Brighton where Falconio was studying at university. The couple embarked on a world tour in 2000 to Thailand, Singapore, and Australia.

1 Disappearance of Peter Falconio
2 Media interviews
3 Writing her book
4 Joanne Lees: Murder In The Outback telemovie
5 References

[edit] Disappearance of Peter Falconio

Main article: Peter Falconio

Bradley John Murdoch was found guilty of the murder of Peter Falconio on 13th December 2005.

Initial public perception in some of the Australian media implied that Lees was in some way responsible for Falconio's murder^{[citation needed]}, and as a result she received a lot of hostility during her time in Australia following the disappearance^{[citation needed]}. Lees has reportedly sued a number of Australian citizens in relation to their libellous claims about her in the Australian media^{[citation needed]}. The response drew comparisons to similar treatment shown to Lindy Chamberlain^{[citation needed]}.

An extensive search by Australian federal police was unable to uncover any resident of the Northern Territory who precisely fitted the description given by Joanne Lees, nor any person who had ever been convicted of an offence anywhere in Australia, nor any vehicle that was registered in the Northern Territory that fitted her description. However, video from a roadstation surveillance camera showed what appeared to be a man who might fit the description given by Lees.

On 10 October 2006 Joanne was interviewed by BBC news 24. Her interview is available online at www.bbc.co.uk /news and also on hardtalk programme explaining her views 5 years on.

When Murdoch was arrested for rape of a mother and her 12-year-old daughter in South Australia, the case reopened, and attempts were made to get a DNA sample from Murdoch to match the blood found on Lees's clothing. After the highly-publicised court case linking Murdoch and his subsequent arrest, public perception of Lees changed. Credibility was added by the demonstrated similarity in bindings used on the 12-year-old girl and Lees.

Joanne Lees, during front page media coverage of the 'Peter Falconio' murder trial.

Lees testified that a man had asked them to stop, claiming engine troubles, and he then suddenly took both of them and then murdered Falconio, before she escaped, hiding for 5 hours in the bush. Lees went to lengths to describe her alleged attacker, his vehicle, and his dog. These descriptions were used to conducted an extensive Australia-wide manhunt in which over 200 people were interviewed and several were arrested and briefly held in custody to answer questions in relation to their similar appearances to that which Lees gave, but none were charged as none of them had been in Barrow Creek at the time of the alleged offence. Bradley John Murdoch was arrested primarily because he was found to have left Alice Springs at a time and in a direction that may have led to him being at or about Barrow Creek at the time of the alleged offence. Expert testimony presented at the trial indicated that Bradley John Murdoch was the man captured in the CCT footage at the Service Station. Further, that the identikit drawings of the attacker and his vehicle bore a strong resemblance to Murdoch. Joanne Lees did identify Murdoch via a UK web site in late 2002, then from police photographs in November 2002 and face to face during the trial on October 18, 2005. This, combined with the DNA match on Joanne Lees' t-shirt, formed the basis of Murdoch being charged with the offence. Whilst other DNA was also found to match, it was later found to have been contaminated and could not be used in court.

As the investigations went on, Lees had admitted to use of ecstasy and marijuana, and to having sex with another man, Nick Riley, in Sydney during their trip through Australia. During the trial, Joanne Lees' credibility was attacked by the defence which claimed to find inconsistencies in her story based on drug use and sexual relations with another man. These matters did not relate to the offence under investigation, and were perceived as essentially irrelevant - although voyeuristically interesting to the public. The attempt to use drug use as a means of discrediting Lees was further to backfire as it was admitted that Murdoch had an extensive past as a drug dealer and heavy user, and had earlier committed violent offences under drug influence. Prosecutors alleged Murdoch raped a 12-year-old girl before abducting her and her mother "for insurance" while in a state of drug-fuelled paranoia "Falconio killer a gun obsessed thug: Police".

Murdoch's defence argued during the trial that the DNA match on Joanne Lees' t-shirt could be due to accidental blood transfer in an Alice Springs Red Rooster restaurant prior to the alleged offence. Earlier, during the committal hearing, Lees had mentioned that she and Falconio had stopped at Red Rooster. During his trial Murdoch claimed that he had also stopped at that restaurant to buy chicken for himself and his dog - "chicken roll, box of nuggets for Jack... Full chicken for the trip". However, several months after Murdoch's conviction, The Bulletin reported that Murdoch was in fact allergic to chicken, as confirmed by a medical certificate and dietary requests in prison.[1]

[edit] Media interviews

Lees has also appeared on British media since the event, talking not only about her boyfriend's disappearance and the man who allegedly killed him, but also about the way that she was treated in the Australian press, and by Australian citizens.

Lees also agreed to an interview with Martin Bashir, which was later televised in Australia, for which she was paid £50,000. She later testified in court she agreed to this interview to raise awareness of the case in Australia as she felt the public profile of the case had diminished.

A lengthy interview with Lees was aired on Andrew Denton's show, Enough Rope on Monday 9 October 2006.

On October 9 Lees was interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 by John Humphrys. He proceeded to attack Lees for cashing in on the tragedy.^[1]

[edit] Writing her book

Lees wrote No Turning Back, a book about her life, for which she reportedly received an advance of GBP 250,000.^[2] She went to the UK for the launch of the book in October 2006 and a serialisation appeared in The Times newspaper on October 2nd and 3rd [2]. During the time she spent living in Sydney and Darwin she said she found the local people very welcoming.