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Re-Issue: The Falconio Mystery Continues - #120 - Australian True Crime | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Re-Issue: The Falconio Mystery Continues - #120

Australian True Crime

Thu Jul 24 2025

Summary

Australian True Crime – Episode #120: Re-Issue: The Falconio Mystery Continues Podcast Host: Meshel Laurie | Guest: Robyn Bowles (Author, "Dead Centre") Release Date: July 24, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into one of Australia’s most enduring true crime mysteries: the 2001 disappearance and presumed murder of British tourist Peter Falconio in the Northern Territory. With the 2024 death of convicted killer Bradley John Murdoch, new attention has turned to the many lingering questions and controversies surrounding the case. Host Meshel Laurie interviews Robyn Bowles, investigative author of Dead Centre, who retraces her own journey through the evidence, reenactments, police files, and personal interviews—including with Murdoch himself. The episode scrutinizes inconsistencies in witness testimonies, the enduring doubts about Joanne Lees' story, and the broader questions of justice and media coverage.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bradley John Murdoch: Life, Death, and Prison

Murdoch’s Background: Known for his imposing size and a violent criminal history, including shooting at a crowd and facing past kidnapping and assault charges ([01:31]).
Personality in Prison: Despite his crimes, Murdoch was described as a complex figure: a "gentle giant" by family, a manipulative gossip in jail ([01:31]).
Deathbed Confession?: Hopes that Murdoch would reveal the truth before dying were unfulfilled. Falconio’s remains remain undiscovered ([01:31]).

Robyn Bowles’ Investigation and On-Site Reenactment

Doubts About the Official Story: Bowles explains her skepticism of Joanne Lees’ account, prompting her to physically retrace Peter and Joanne's route for her own reenactment ([05:53]).

“How could a young Pommy girl elude an experienced bushman in that sort of countryside?... Joanne Lees story just didn't ring true with me.”
— Robyn Bowles ([05:53])
Reenactment in the Outback: Bowles and her team recreated Lees’ supposed escape under similar conditions, discovering severe physical difficulties and environmental hazards (spiderwebs, sharp grass, wildlife) that seemed to contradict Lees’ relatively unscathed appearance ([09:04]–[11:10]).

“I was covered in Pindan and spiderwebs and scratches, so I was a real mess... when Joanne came in she had no scratches on her, she had very little marks…”
— Bowles ([11:10])
Conclusions from the Reenactment: Bowles believes that while Lees was traumatized, the specific details of her survival seem inconsistent with what they experienced.

Joanne Lees’ Story and The Anomalies

Lees’ Account: According to Lees, after pulling over on the highway, a man accosted them (Murdoch), shot Falconio, assaulted her, tied her up, threatened her with a gun, and she then made an elaborate escape ([11:47]).
Key Inconsistencies Identified by Bowles:
- Lack of physical evidence (no scratches or dog hair on Lees, despite the escape route and proximity to Murdoch’s dog) ([16:13]–[16:44]).
- The supposed crawl-through escape from Murdoch’s truck contradicts the physical structure of evidence regarding his vehicle ([16:44]–[18:15]).
- Unlikelihood of Lees’ composure and agility during an abduction ([18:15]).
- Police initially identified 16 anomalies in her story and even attempted hypnosis to clarify her recall, which was unsuccessful ([18:40]).
“There are a lot of other areas that I can canvas... the police identified 16 anomalies in her story.”
— Bowles ([18:40])
Media Scrutiny and Public Perception: After the attack, Lees initially tried to return to a normal life but was hounded by the media. She later did exclusive interviews and published her own book, No Turning Back ([20:49]–[21:56]).

The ‘Lindification’ of Joanne Lees

Parallel to Lindy Chamberlain: Lees’ stoicism and media reticence drew comparisons to Lindy Chamberlain (wrongfully convicted of murdering her baby, famously claiming "a dingo took my baby"), and the police were desperate to avoid a similar public relations disaster ([25:18]):

“There was a phrase that was coined... 'the lindification of Joanne'... the last thing [the police] wanted... was another Chamberlain on their hands.”
— Bowles ([25:32])
Press Conference: Lees eventually made a public appearance wearing the infamous "Cheeky Monkey" shirt—an event cited for its affect and media impact ([27:43]–[28:09]).

The Truck Stop, Murdoch’s Crimes, and Character

Murdoch’s Movements: Bowles spent years interviewing Murdoch and believes he lied about his whereabouts the night of the crime due to "consciousness of guilt" ([31:54]).
Lifestyle and Tactics: Murdoch was a methodical man—using drugs to stay awake, constantly altering his vehicle’s appearance, and keeping to himself while running drugs across the outback ([36:18]).
Dog Mismatch: Notably, Murdoch’s dog Jack was a Dalmatian, while various witnesses described a cattle dog, further muddying identification ([37:23]).

“He said, 'Yes, I have got a dog... his name's Jack... and he's a Dalmatian.' So far we've heard several different descriptions of the dog, but not one of them was white with black spots.”
— Bowles ([37:23])
Murdoch on Accusations: Murdoch insisted he hadn’t killed Falconio, highlighting his own physical strength as inconsistent with Lees’ account of being punched (no marks on her) ([37:57]).

“That bitch reckoned I punched her in the face. He said, if I'd punched her in the effing face, I would have broken her effing jaw.”
— (Murdoch, via Bowles) ([39:19])

The Trial: Testimony, Lies, and the Search for Justice

Shifting Testimony: In a dramatic courtroom moment, Lees changed her account regarding how she was put into Murdoch’s vehicle, shifting to match evidence about the rig’s structure—a surprise to those who’d followed the case ([40:42]–[43:26]):

“She said, and then the man... lifted up the side flap and pushed me into the side of the vehicle, into the tray. Now... that was a new part of the story. We'd never heard that before...”
— Bowles ([43:20])
The 'Steph' Email Bombshell: Defense unearthed emails showing Lees was corresponding with "Steph" in Berlin, suggesting a secret romantic interest; she initially lied under oath about this, impacting her credibility ([43:28]–[47:45]).
Forensic Challenges and Legal Dead Ends: New laws prevent parole for convicted murderers who won’t reveal a victim's location—meaning Murdoch will never be released. Meanwhile, doubts about the forensic evidence linger, but a retrial appears impossible ([47:54]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the credibility of Lees’ account:

“What I think in summary is that something bad did happen to Joanne Lees... but whether it happened the way that she said, I have grave doubts.”
— Robyn Bowles ([11:44])
On Murdoch’s denial:

“He said, well, no, I didn’t. And how do you know he’s even dead?”
— Bowles recounting Murdoch ([37:25])
On media treatment and trauma:

“Her life has been blighted by this. I accept that.”
— Robyn Bowles ([22:49])
On changing testimony:

“The whole court just went like that. Because we knew that that was a new part. That was a new part of the story. We’d never heard that before...”
— Robyn Bowles ([43:20])

Timestamps for Key Segments

Murdoch’s History and Death – [01:31]
Bowles' Motivation and Reenactment – [05:53]–[11:10]
Detailed Recounting of Lees’ Story – [11:47]–[16:13]
Major Anomalies and Evidence Issues – [16:13]–[18:40], [31:54]–[37:23]
Media & Public Perception of Lees – [20:39]–[28:09]
Police and Media Management – [25:18]–[28:09]
The 'Steph' Email and Its Fallout – [43:28]–[47:45]
Possibility of Retrial and Ongoing Doubts – [47:54]–[48:37]
Bowles' Final Theory – [48:37]–[49:52]

Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode paints a portrait not only of the Falconio case’s enduring ambiguities, but also of the psychological, social, and legal labyrinth that surrounds notorious crimes. The rigorous fact-checking and personal experience of Robyn Bowles challenge the simple narrative of “solved case, evil man.” Instead, listeners are left to grapple with forensic uncertainties, contested testimonies, and the raw human fallout still echoing decades on.

Final word: The episode does not deliver definitive answers but raises essential questions about justice, trauma, and the quest for truth in the shadow of one of Australia’s most shadowy mysteries.

Resource:
Robyn Bowles’ books and further reading can be found via the link in the show notes.
For support services, Australian listeners are referred to Lifeline (13 11 14) and 1-800-Respect ([49:52]).

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Transcript

Host (0:00)

Before we begin today's episode of Australian True Crime, I want to tell you about a new project we've been working on behind the scenes. It's called she Matters. It's a new podcast from award winning journalist and femicide researcher Sherrelle Moody. Each week, Sherrelle speaks with families of women and children killed in Australia, sharing who they were, the joy they brought and the love they left behind. She Matters isn't a true crime podcast. It's about lives lived, lives loved and lives lost. She Matters is produced by Dash made Podcasts in association with bravecasting Media. She Matters is available wherever you get your podcasts. The following podcast contains content of a graphic, violent nature and is not suitable for children.

Robyn Bowles (0:47)

She looked at the jury with, you know, her great big eyes and a little pathetic face and she said, he punched me right here. And she put her finger on her temple and you could almost hear the jury go, oh. But in fact, they interviewed the doctor subsequently and he said, she didn't have a mark on her face, number one. But well before that, when I interviewed Murdoch the first time, he put his elbow on this table where we were and he made a fist and his fist was the size of a rock melon. He's a big man. And he said, that bitch reckoned I punched her in the face. He said, if I'd punched her in the effing face, I would have broken her effing jaw.

Host (1:31)

One of Australia's most notorious convicted killers, Bradley John Murdoch, died recently while serving a life sentence for the 2001 murder of British tourist Peter Falconio. He was also convicted of kidnapping and assaulting Falconio's girlfriend, Joanne Lees. It's been said that during his time in prison, Murdoch was friendly with male prison guards, but despised their female counterparts. He was apparently a keen gossip, known for turning other prisoners against each other when the mood took him. And they say he kept a copy of Joanne Lee's autobiography, no Turning Back, in his cell before his conviction for Falconio's murder, Murdoch faced charges of kidnapping and raping a 12 year old girl in South Australia. And he served time in Western Australia for shooting into a crowd of football fans in Fitzroy Crossing. Upon his death, though, his family described him as a proud poppy and a gentle giant with a heart of gold. There were hopes and even suggestions that he might drop a bombshell about the Falconio murder on his deathbed. But it wasn't to be. Peter Falconio's remains have never been discovered and police say they believe the body is somewhere between Alice Springs and Broome, a distance of some 1700 kilometres. Joanne Lees vividly recounted the events of the night she and her partner encountered Murdoch on a lonely stretch of highway in the Northern Territory. Her testimony was a turning point in the trial, but there are still those who don't quite believe her version of events. One of them is author Robyn Bowles, who went to extraordinary lengths to fact check Lee's story. She wrote a book about it called Dead Centre, and she joins us on Australian True Crime to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation.

Robyn Bowles (5:53)

How could a young Pommy girl elude an experienced bushman in that sort of countryside? I just. Joanne Lees story just didn't ring true with me. So I persuaded my husband to put his pen down and hop in a car with me. So we decided we would follow Peter and Joanne's journey from Adelaide north on the same days and the same locations until we reached the spot where the alleged incident occurred. So this involved going via Adelaide to the Bolivar Caravan park, where we actually discovered that it was likely that Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio stayed at the caravan park at the same time as Bradley John Murdoch and his dog. Which made me quite excited because I thought, wow, there's an opportunity for his DNA maybe to have gotten her T shirt, which had nothing to do with the incident. Then we went up to Alice Springs and we signed on our film crew, Chris Tangie and his cohorts, and we also had a couple of his mates who were sort of riding shotgun for us to keep an eye on us as we were doing this proposed reenactment. Got the cable, tyres, the infrared camera, went and interviewed the police to find out exactly where it happened. They told me that there were actually still pink markings on the road where they indicated where all the cars and things were at the time. They were still there. Two years later, the night before our adventure, I went to a pub to interview someone and I had a seafood salad, which is a big mistake in Alice Springs. It's a long way from the sea. And so I got very sick and I had to actually be in hospital all night on a drip. The nurse said to me, oh, this is terrible. She said, it's going to give us a bad reputation. Alice Springs, Prince Charles got seafood poisoning as well. And I said, well, it was nice of him to let me know. So I was feeling particularly shaky when we headed off, but we went to the Camel cup where they run camels round and round the track. Ugly looking beasts they are and bad tempered. It's fun. Yeah, but it was hot and we. Anyway we left at 4:30 and we then we drove to the first stop that Peter and Joanne said they made which was the Tea Tree Road house. We stopped to have a coffee. We didn't have a bong, which she said that she and Peter had. And that was only an hour or so before the incident happened. So you know, I've often wondered whether that influenced what she remembered. So we got to the spot and then I got out, hands behind my back, tied up with cable ties. We had a gunman, that was Chris, he was wanted to play that part. And then we had watches on the road to count the cars that went past to see what sort of traffic we had on that particular night and that particular time it was dark as pitch, no moon, no stars even and terribly quiet. And it's very hard to explain the silence. And if you just step on a twig it makes this huge snap noise. And so I said to Chris, give me a few minutes start because I'm older and fatter than Joanne and I took off into the bush, running through, across the pindan and the gravel and then across the spinifex grass which is very sharp and pointy. And you'll often see workers in the territory who are wearing shorts but they also wear gaiters so they don't get cut about by the spinifex grass. That's the reason.

Robyn Bowles (9:05)

Are they those like cricket pads, you know? Yeah, to protect your lower legs when, when you're walking through the spin feast because it can give you nasty scratches. I was wearing shoes because I'm a bit scared of snakes, but Joanne had sandals on. So anyway, I hardly got any distance at all. I ran between two mulga trees and I ran straight into a spider's web wrapped itself around my face which was really scary, but I couldn't get it off because my hands were behind my back. So I just sort of spat it out and kept going. So I crashed through the mulga which made a lot of noise because the tree branches fall off when they die. They just fall down of course. And then I heard my gunman coming behind me, you know. Then I hit a fence. On the other side of the fence there was this very large bull. I thought I'm not going over there. So I did a little sort of angle back and found somewhere because he was getting closer and I just crouched down. Now the thing about the fence and the distance I ran was that from the side of the road. We went back and measured it the next morning. From the side of the road there was 10 meters of pin down and gravel, then there was about 10 metres of spinifex and then around about 10 metres of mulga before the fence. So it was approximately 30 meters in from the road, which isn't very far. It's 30 big paces for a man. So whatever happened that night, the gunman, if he was looking for Joanne, he would have had the same obstacles in his way and when he got to the fence he would have doubled back as well. If Chris had doubled back to his right instead of his left, it might have taken him longer to find me because he'd just go back to the road and then back down and back the road. Well, he actually turned left like I did, so he found me very quickly. Then we called in the camera crew and they filmed all that sort of thing. And then we got back in the car and we went to the Barracreek Hotel which we'd booked into for the night. We call it the Pilton Hilton because Les Pilton is the owner of the Barrack Creek Hotel. So Helen was his partner and she just looked at me and she said to Les, now that's how that girl should have looked that night. And I was covered in Pendan and spiderwebs and scratches, so I was a real mess. So.

Robyn Bowles (11:47)

Well, the story she told the police the next day and she's hardly varied it except during the trial, which was a huge surprise to everyone who was there. But perhaps come to that later, she said that she and Pete had left Tea Tree after smoking a bong. It was 6:21pm and they'd driven to where the incident took place. Combie did about 80ks an hour. So that's how it's Placed there at around about 7:30ish, that sort of time. She said after they pulled out from Barrack Creek, they passed a fire on the side of the road and Peter wanted to stop and try and put it out, but she didn't want to because she thought it might be some sort of trap. And at the time I thought, why would anybody want to trap a couple of young backpackers? You know, they're not usually loaded with dough. But anyway, that was what she said. Then they drove on and they saw headlights behind them and then a man pulled level with them with the interior light of his car on, which again was very surprising to me because you don't drive out in the pitch dark with the interior light on. And sitting next to him in the drive in the passenger seat was a brownish black cattle dog. And he gesticulated to Peter to pull over and said his combi was blowing sparks. Now, they had had trouble with the combi. The engine had been an issue all the trip and in fact someone, and we never found out who, but someone did a repair on it on the journey and fixed up part of the fan belt and, and so on and tied it up with the stocking and some hundred mile now tape, which was a very typical way that a bushman would repair something temporarily. And I often wonder whether it was actually Brad Murdoch at the, at the caravan park, whether he in fact was the one who, who did that bit of running repair for them. But he says he's never met either of them, he's told me that. So, you know, it's only my speculation that says that. So then Peter pulled over, he got out of the car, he walked to the back, came back to get his cigarettes, told Joanne to sit in the driver's seat and rev the car. And so she was revving the vehicle and she said she heard a bang. She thought it was the back firing, so she wasn't concerned at that time. She could see them both at the time in the rear vision mirror of the combi. Then suddenly, she said the man appeared at the window pointing a silver revolver at her head and told her to turn the car off, move over. She said she was so frightened that she couldn't do anything, she couldn't move. So he opened the door and pushed her across, turned off the vehicle. He took her glasses off and then he pushed her outside of the car onto her stomach and tried to tie her up with her feet and her hands behind her back. She said that she kicked and kicked and kicked so he wasn't able to tie up her feet. But he did tie up her hand. Said that he punched her in the, in the temple. Then she said that he got her up and put his hand behind her neck and sort of frog marched her to his vehicle, which was a white four wheel drive vehicle, and opened the passenger door. It's very important at that point, opened the passenger door and there was a dog on the seat which just quietly moved across to let her get in. So she climbed in and she said he put a bag over her head, a canvas bag. So I'm picturing Murdoch now getting into the combi with a roll of duct tape that he put around her face, which fell down and around her neck, the cable ties, handcuffs, another roll of tape for her feet, a canvas bag. And as one of Murdoch's friends said to me much later when he was telling me this story, he said he must have been a neffing octopus. So anyway, we have him with all these things in his hand and then putting her in the car. So then she said he went away. And while he was away, she was able to wriggle through a crawl through space between the two seats, bucket seats, across a sort of bed like area, because Murdoch actually used to sleep in the back of the ute from time to time and still with her hands behind her back, wriggle over the back tray and drop down and run into the bush and hide. And then the gunman came after her. So that was her story at the time.

Robyn Bowles (37:25)

Yeah, he does, rather. You're right. So look, I got to know Murdoch quite well the first time I went and saw him. I was a bit nervous myself, to be honest, but I had to ask him the question because when you go and visit these people in prison, sometimes they won't let you come back. You've got to be on their visitor list. So I thought, well, if he doesn't want me to come back, I've got to get this one out. So of course we hardly said hello. And I said to him, well, did you. Did you kill Peter Falconio? And he said, well, no, I didn't. And how do you know he's even dead? Which was a fair question at that time. It was only like, a bit over 12 months since the disappearance. Another thing that he said to me was, which sort of struck me, this interview was what set me going back to Melbourne and saying to my husband, put your pen down, we're going on this trip. Because I said to him, have you got a dog? And he said, yes, I have got a dog. And he said, He's 4 years old, his name's Jack, he goes everywhere with me, and he's a Dalmatian. So I'm a bit gobsmacked here because so far we've heard several different descriptions of the dog, but not one of them was white with black spots. And I said, where is he? And he said, oh, some people are keeping him up near Sudan. I'll tell you where he is. You can go and take his photo if you like. He said, the cops have already been. I did go and have a look at Jack, and he was a Dalmatian. There might have been a bit of something else in him, but definitely looked like a Dalmatian. Another thing that Murdoch said to me was that Joanne told the court in the trial that the gunman had punched her in the temple. And in fact, she looked at the jury with, you know, her great big eyes and a little pathetic face, and she said, and he. He punched me right here. And she put her finger on her temple. And you could almost hear the jury go, oh. But in fact, they interviewed the doctor subsequently, and he said she didn't have a mark on her face, number one. But well, before that, when I interviewed Murdoch the first time, he put his elbow on this table where we were, and he made a fist, and his fist was the size of a rock melon. He's a big man. And he said, that bitch reckoned I punched her in the face. He said, if I'd punched her in the effing face, I would have broken her effing jaw. And I believe him. So there were no bruises or anything on her. And I actually ran after the doctor after he'd given evidence. I ran after him down the driveway of the Supreme Court. I really wanted to check that point. People will tell you stories, and it's one of the reasons I never pay for interviews, because people sometimes say, oh, if you pay me, I'll talk to you. And I say, no, I don't. Because when you pay people, they usually want to please you, because you paid them. And they tell you what you want to hear. Not, you know, necessarily what might be the actual facts. And I always check. I check everything.

Robyn Bowles (40:48)

And she also lied under oath and eventually corrected that. The thing that I always say about trials is that the jury only gets to hear what is considered evidence as opposed to what I find out, which is gossip, innuendo, speculation and luckily from now and then, a few facts. So I have a much broader background of knowledge of these things. And sometimes, dare I say it, I know more than the police and I know more than the lawyers because a lot of people that talk to me won't talk to the police. And so I'm sitting there listening to what the jury hears and it's very sort of sanitised in lots of ways. There's certain rules around evidence, of course, that you can't break in a trial. I have to say that the jury probably in this case made the decision that most people would have made if they'd been on that jury. However, one of the things that all of us who'd been involved in the story from the beginning, I'm talking about right back to the Alice Springs incident. Way back there were a huge number of media in Darwin as well for the trial. Of course you could hear the intake of breath in the court when Joanne changed her story for the jury because in the interim period the police had conducted a search around Australia for white four wheel drive vehicles with crawl throughs between the front seats. Any white four wheel drive that was owned by a 40ish old man was inspected by a police officer. In the whole of Australia there were a few, over 4,000 I believe, and not one single vehicle had a crawl through. So obviously the police had told Joanne this was a bit of a sticking point in her story because if the defence brought that up, you know, well, how did she get into the back of the vehicle? So she was sitting there being taken through her paces by the dpp. And so she said, and then the man was. Put a bag over my head and he took me to his vehicle and he lifted up the side flap and pushed me into the side of the vehicle, into the tray. Now, we were sitting in the court, the people who could fit in, because it was a very small court and there was this noise. The whole court just went like that. Because we knew that that was a new part. That was a new part of the story. We'd never heard that before, but of course that's what the jury heard. Now, that's totally impossible because Murdoch had these flaps that you lifted up. They're aluminium, so you could lift them up and prop them so you could sit under them if you wanted to stop and make cup of tea or, you know, this sort of thing, like an annex.

Robyn Bowles (43:37)

Oh, yeah, they say that, yeah. And Grant Algae did. He said, your story is now different. And that was at the trial. So that was a huge piece of evidence that, of course the defence. I mean, the jury's going to think, well, of course the defence is going to try and discredit her. And a lot of people felt that actually Grant Elgee didn't go in hard enough. I know Murdoch was disappointed, but he explained to me later that there's no point in trying to discredit a witness that's been schooled so carefully. And she'd obviously had a lot of training on how to answer questions. She. She answered every question to the jury. Now, experienced evidence givers, like forensic people and police and so on, they don't answer the lawyers. They look at the jury when they give their answer, so they look at their lawyer to get the question and then they give the answer to the jury. And people who are inexperienced, oh, there's a little trick you can do. People who are inexperienced are advised to, when you get in the witness box, stand with your feet pointing towards the jury, so that then you have to turn to listen to the question and then it's automatic to look back to the jury when you're giving the answer. So she had given this evidence in the trial. But in the committal hearing, Algie had gone in much harder on her, and he managed to unearth a little bit of a little gold nugget for the media who were salivating over anything, but particularly this particular issue. So before the committal, he had obtained for Murdoch the privilege of having a computer not connected to the Internet, but a computer in his cell and all the boxes of the police files. Normally the police files aren't made available to criminals, but because the police, when they were giving their evidence, referred so often to the file, he was able to then say to the judge, well, look, you know, this has been unfair because we're hearing all this stuff that's in the file and we don't have a copy of the file. So I call for the file. And so the file came forward and it was about like four big cardboard boxes full of 120,000 pages of stu. So Murdoch had nothing better to do but trawl through all this. And in his little researches, I mean, he helped me a lot because he gave me lots of information that, you know, wasn't available to the public because he found all this stuff like the hypnotherapist's address and so on. She nearly had a heart attack when I rang her up in amongst all this. He found out that in the hotel where the police put her up, where she was being looked after by my. Still, my contact, Libby, Joanne was on the Internet to someone called Steph, and quite often on the Internet and talking to this person. He was in Berlin at the time and she was saying, when this is all over, I should meet you in Berlin. And then another email said something like, if we ever have a little girl together, we should call her Stephanie, and this sort of thing. And so of course, Murdoch had found all these emails and this was gold to him. So Algie just asked, he had very soft voice in the court and he stood up and he said, and who is Steph? And she just looked like she'd been shot. Eyes went round, her face just went white and she looked at wild, you know, the deep. And of course he couldn't help her because he really should have brought it out in direct questioning to say, and you had a friend called Steph, but there was nothing in that, was there? You know, but he didn't. And so it was a bombshell and it all happened at about quarter to four, so the media are scribbling like mad, and the judge kind of saved her, she said she didn't, she didn't know, and Then Algie said, is that someone you've been emailing? No, she lied, totally lied about it. And so he hammered that point home and she continued to lie about it and she just looked like she didn't know where to go. Luckily for her, the judge saved her by calling a five minute early adjournment. The media were furious about it, but he got her off the hook for then. And then the next morning when she came back into court, Algie went in again, very politely and softly and asked her to tell us all about Steph. And of course she'd been told by the DPP that she has to tell the story. Then of course, people say, oh, well, you tell one lie, you know, could be it. Yeah, so. So her credibility was a bit lacking in some areas, I think. But having said that, again, I should say that I don't think she was anywhere responsible for what happened to Peter.