Blood found on remote road.

Police today told a murder trial how they found blood at the side of a remote Australian highway.

The blood was found at the spot where Huddersfield backpacker Peter Falconio and his girlfriend Joanne Lees were allegedly ambushed.

And there has been no trace of Mr Falconio since that day four years ago.

Bradley Murdoch, 47, denies murdering Mr Falconio, of Hepworth, and also attacking and abducting Miss Lees.

Sgt Ian Mark Kesby, of Alice Springs police, told the Supreme Court in Darwin he saw "quite a large blood stain" on the west side of the Stuart Highway when he visited the scene.

He said the blood was covered over with dirt and 100 metres north of this, and 60 metres west, police found the orange camper van used by the Huddersfield couple parked in the bush.

The police conducted a "minor search" at the time.

He said: "We went for about 200 metres, just on the verge of the road, each side of where what appeared to be blood had been located.

"We didn't actually walk off the gravel part of the road.

"We didn't go into the bush at all."

Sgt Kesby said he spoke to Miss Lees at the Barrow Creek pub.

He said: "She appeared to me as though she was in shock, she was very quiet, her demeanour was very quiet. She was shivering from time to time."

He said she was wearing a T-shirt top and long shorts, and she told him her attacker's vehicle was a white four-wheel drive.

He said: "It appeared to me she was trying to describe a Toyota Land Cruiser and, being that she was English, she had very little knowledge of the vehicles we have here in the Northern Territory."

He said there was a vehicle parked out the front of the Barrow Creek Hotel that was a Toyota Land Cruiser with a green canvas on the back.

"To make it easier for my investigation I decided to show her this vehicle so she could confirm or deny whether it was the same or similar to the one she was talking about," he said.

"She examined the vehicle and she told me although it was similar it was not the same as the vehicle that pulled her over."

He said she spent around two minutes walking around the vehicle, as its driver stood by the vehicle's door, and said that it was similar, but not the same, as her attacker's.

"She told me the differences were that in the other vehicle she could climb from the front seats through to the back of the yute section," he said.

"And also on the canopy part or yute section there was a mattress. And also the canvas was a darker colour, possibly black."

He added that he also received a dog hair, which Miss Lees had found when she had changed her clothes, which was then kept as evidence and marked as such, along with her clothing and shoes, all in separate bags.

Earlier, Maureen Laracy, an accountant for Deloittes in Alice Springs who Mr Falconio saw on the morning of his alleged murder, told the court she told him he owed the tax office money.

She said Mr Falconio had entered Australia on a work visa, but had been paying tax as a resident rather than a non-resident, and the tax he had paid so far was not enough.

Talking about their 15-minute meeting at 10am on the day of the alleged attack, she said: "I calculated the tax payable on income he earned and advised him that he had a bill that he owed the tax office.

"I asked him if he wanted to continue and have the tax return completed and he declined."

She said this was a common reaction.

"When they find they owe money they just want to get on a plane to get home," she said.

Miss Lees, formerly of Almondbury who now lives in Brighton, was wearing a navy blue suit with a white blouse. She listened at the back of the court in the public gallery throughout the day, along with Mr Falconio's parents, Joan and Luciano, and brothers Nick and Paul, all of Huddersfield.

The trial was adjourned.