The girlfriend of a British backpacker killed in the Australian Outback took a step closer to the end of a four-year ordeal when she gave evidence in the trial of a 47-year-old man charged with his murder.

Dressed in a smart white blouse and black skirt with her hair tied up, Joanne Lees sat across the room from Bradley Murdoch, the truck driver and mechanic from Broome, Western Australia, who is standing trial for the murder of Peter Falconio.

Her appearance marked the beginning of the end of the case that started on a dark and lonely spot on the Stuart Highway in Australia's red centre more than four years ago.

In one of the most high-profile court cases in Australian history, the support assistant from Brighton came face to face with the man prosecutors allege shot Mr Falconio, 28, after signalling for him to stop his orange Kombi van on the desert highway after dark on June 14 2001.

Prosecutors for the Crown wasted no time calling Ms Lees to give evidence on day one of the trial, which is set to last between six and eight weeks, and bringing up the subject of her affair with a man she met in Sydney within the first hour.

She admitted their relationship had overstepped the boundary of friendship and that she had become intimate with a man called Nick, whom she met through friends at work in Dymocks bookshop in Sydney. She said Mr Falconio was not aware of the affair and it had not affected their relationship.

Despite the intense media interest in the case, which has led to the trial being relayed through video and audio links to a second courtroom, Ms Lees appeared relaxed as she told how she had enjoyed a last romantic moment with "Pete" as they shared a cannabis joint and watched the sun set in a lay-by north of Alice Springs just hours before the attack. She told the packed courtroom: "I was very happy. It was a beautiful sunset."

The 32-year-old from Huddersfield, who moved to Brighton in August 1997 to live with Mr Falconio, even smiled and laughed as she recalled how she had chosen Texas as the music to be played at the start of their journey, despite it not being Mr Falconio's favourite, as it was the "driver's privilege".

Throughout the 40 minutes Ms Lees was giving her evidence, the man accused of killing her boyfriend sat and listened between two uniformed guards in the dock at the side of the court.

The jury had already heard that Murdoch is accused of holding a gun to her head, punching her in the face and binding her arms behind her back before putting a sack over her head and taping her legs together. He denies all the charges.

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