THE girlfriend of Huddersfield backpacker Peter Falconio, murdered in Australia over four years ago, today denied seeing the suspect in a restaurant hours before the attack.

Joanne Lees, 32, formerly of Almondbury, said she did not see or bump into Bradley Murdoch in a Red Rooster fast food restaurant only hours before she was attacked and Mr Falconio, 28, allegedly murdered on an Outback road north of Alice Springs on July 14, 2001.

Murdoch, 47, of Broome, Western Australia, denies murder, depriving Miss Lees of her personal liberty and assaulting her in aggravating circumstances.

He is appearing at the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin.

Cross-examined by Grant Algie, for the defence, Miss Lees denied seeing Murdoch at about 1pm on the day of the attack, when she shared a last meal with her boyfriend at the restaurant in Alice Springs.

Mr Algie asked Miss Lees if she had any recollection of seeing Murdoch there, or whether he passed near her or in her vicinity.

She replied "no" to both questions.

Mr Algie asked: "If he had been in the vicinity, would you necessarily remember that?"

"No. Why would I?" she said.

The couple were attacked after being flagged down by another motorist at about 8pm on the Stuart Highway, about six miles north of Barrow Creek.

Miss Lees was threatened with a gun to her head, tied up with her hands behind her back and put in the back of her attacker's vehicle.

But she escaped from under the loose canopy and hid in the bush for more than five hours.

She never saw Mr Falconio again.

Earlier, Miss Lees said an artist had used his own ideas when drawing her attacker and his vehicle.

The illustrations were shown in court on the fourth day of Miss Lees, 32, now living in Brighton, giving evidence.

She said that whenever she could not remember or did not know a detail the artist would use his own thoughts to `fill in the gaps'.

The court heard she worked with local artist David Stagg for six hours to compose images of the vehicle, the gun and her attacker.

Asked by Mr Algie if this was correct, she said: "I wasn't timing it. I was co-operating. I was keen to help in any way I could."

Asked how the specifics of the drawings, including an oval canopy on the truck, its fastenings and a chunky steering wheel, came about, she said: "Under the artist's own effort really.

"The artist was just very keen to help and offering his own ideas.

"I know he was using some of his own thoughts and ideas to help jog my memory.

"When I didn't know something or couldn't recall, he said: `Well it must have been like this, or it must have been like that'.

"He put his own input into these drawings.

"I never saw the top of the canopy, so I wasn't able to give a description or instructions to Mr Stagg."

Talking about the illustration of fastenings on the canopy, she said: "I told him I couldn't remember and he said, well it must have been fastened down somehow, and then he drew that."

Asked about the image of the back of the vehicle, Miss Lees said: "I'm not 100% sure about the back of the vehicle. All I'm concentrating on is escaping. All I'm conscious of was there was an opening and I'm getting out of there and I'm escaping."

Wearing a brown, short-sleeved top, white skirt and with her shoulder-length dark hair worn down, Miss Lees agreed that she had been shown a four-wheel drive vehicle at Barrow Creek after the attack.

Asked if she told police it was not her attacker's vehicle because it had no front-to-rear access, because there was no mattress or bed in the back and because the canopy on her attacker's car was darker, she said: "No. I was also shown the man who was driving the vehicle and it was not the man who attacked me that night.

"I can't remember what I said to the police. It was all done very hurriedly. It was not a statement or a formal identification. It all happened very quickly.

"I just wanted to get back inside, carry on with my statements so the police could look for the man who attacked me."

Asked what time it was, she said: "Time didn't matter to me, whether it was three, six o'clock. The day didn't matter to me. Looking back on it, it was just like one long continuous day."

Earlier, Mr Algie said: "Whatever did or did not happen north of Barrow Creek, Mr Murdoch wasn't the man you described as doing these things. Might I be right about that?"

"No," she said.

Miss Lees also denied Mr Algie's suggestion that Murdoch was not the attacker and that she was wrong.

Asked if she thought the picture on the BBC News website of a suspect influenced her identification of Murdoch as the attacker, she said: "No. I would recognise him anywhere.

"At the end of the day I was there. I know what happened and I don't need to read it from the Press."

She was asked if she thought she might be wrong about the identification, but said: "No."

Staring at Murdoch, who was wearing beige trousers and a long-sleeved light blue shirt in the dock, she said: "The pictures I have seen, he is the man who attacked me north of Barrow Creek."

After Miss Lees completed her evidence, prosecutor Rex Wild was asked by the judge whether she would be leaving the court's jurisdiction.

Mr Wild said: "It's my understanding she wants to sit in the court and listen."

Miss Lees then sat in the front row of the public gallery at the back of the court.

The case continues.