ITV Presents Murder In The Outback

As travelling young British couple Joanne Lees (Joanne Froggatt) and Peter Falconio (Laurence Breuls) drive through the Australian Outback in a bright orange camper van, their camaraderie is obvious. Close, carefree and in love, they are having the time of their lives.

Driving down the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territories late one night, they are waved over by a man in a Four-Wheel Drive. There are sparks flying out of their exhaust, he tells them. Peter gets out of the camper van to investigate and asks Joanne to rev the engine.

Joanne hears a bang from the back of the van and suddenly the driver of the 4WD is upon her, threatening her with a gun. He ties her hands behind her back and brutally throws her into the back of his ‘ute’, ordering her to stay there while he disappears for a few minutes. Peter is nowhere to be seen.

While he is gone, Joanne seizes her chance to escape. She spots a small gap in the canvas, squeezes through it and runs into the bush, where she crouches in the undergrowth, hardly daring to breathe. The attacker returns and although he stalks the bush for her, his torch sweeping terrifying close to her on several occasions, she remains undetected. Eventually a car passes and the man stops his search and drives off. Its four hours before Joanne plucks up the courage to leave her hiding place and throw herself into the path of an oncoming road train for help.

Driver Vince Millar (Gary Waddell) takes Joanne to the nearest truck stop, in Barrow Creek, to call the police. Several hours later, Sergeant Kesby (Richard Keifel) and his team arrive to find Joanne distraught with worry about Peter. After taking a statement, they set out to search for the van. They soon find a dried blood stain at the side of the road and the van abandoned in the bush. They return to Joanne – now attracting local press as news of her story spreads - at the road house and tell her to expect the worst. The bar’s owner Helen (Denise Roberts) takes pity on Joanne and takes her home with her to wait for news. The blood is thought to be Peter’s – and the search continues.

Questioned time and time again, Joanne reiterates her story with a frustrated resolve. But there is something about her manner - head held high, more reserved than emotional - which is putting doubt into the minds of those questioning her. To the press, she doesn't seem to be behaving in the way people in her situation 'normally' do. She isn't weepy or compliant enough. She isn't giving them good 'victim'.

Speculation that there is something odd about Joanne and her story is spreading like wildfire. She said her hands had been tied behind her back, but she was found with them tied in front of her. She claimed to have been moved from the front to the back of the 4WD through the front seats, yet there is no such gap in a ute which would make this possible.

Joanne agrees, on Helen’s advice, to talk to a local journalist friend, Mark Wilton (Morgan O'Neill), but his article only inflames speculation and results in Joanne refusing to talk to any other journalists. But the police still have no leads and need Joanne to cooperate with the press.

Eventually convinced that it may help to find Peter, she agrees on the condition that she can approve the questions beforehand. Journalists are incensed when Joanne agrees to answer only three – and only to one reporter and one photographer. The rest of the press are ushered out and Joanne – wearing a tight vest with the words ‘Cheeky Monkey’ emblazoned across her chest – delivers her appeal to the world. She is controlled and calm. And the world’s press have already taken a dislike to her.

Joanne returns to England, frustrated with the progress of the case – there is still no sign of a suspect. As the press continue to scrutinise her, she eventually caves in to repeated calls from TV interviewer Martin Bashir (Raj Sidhu) begging her to break her silence. She gives Bashir the interview the world wants, but her cool demeanour continues to be questioned by the sceptical media.

Then, back in Australia, a petty criminal, arrested for possession of drugs, offers the police a deal. A friend of his has boasted of killing Peter Falconio. His name is Bradley Murdoch (Richard Carter). Murdoch is finally tracked down and arrested in an armed showdown at a supermarket. But he immediately protests his innocence and says he's been 'set up'. Joanne is shown an ID parade of photos and picks out Murdoch. Despite the absence of a body, Murdoch is charged with Peter’s murder.

The case is prepared against Murdoch. Prosecuting is Director of Public Prosecutions Rex Wild (Bryan Brown) and his assistants Anne (Asher Keddie) and Tony (Tom Long). Flamboyant ‘hot shot’ defence lawyer Grant Algie (John Wood) takes on Murdoch’s case and sets out to pick holes in the prosecution case, particularly Joanne’s story, at the committal hearing. His line of attack is to raise something Joanne had already told the police.

A friend she had been emailing for support after her ordeal in Australia turns out to be a man named Nick Reilly – someone she had slept with before she left Sydney. The press are delighted to seize upon this “secret” affair. Joanne returns to the UK with the prospect of the further ordeal of the trial still to come.

As Joanne awaits the trial, she struggles to rebuild her life back in England. All seems lost and she wonders if Murdoch will ever be brought to account for Peter’s murder. A major breakthrough is made – the prosecution have discovered a testing technique which can read low levels of DNA. UK scientist Dr Jonathon Whitaker (Peter Mcallum) finds Murdoch’s DNA on the homemade hand cuffs he used to bind her. Joanne must fly back to Australia to once again face Murdoch – and Algie – in court. She is supported by the Falconio family, with whom she sits every day in the courtroom.

Although Joanne demonstrates in court how she moved her tied hands from behind to in front of her, she still has trouble recalling parts of her ordeal and opening up emotionally about her relationship with Peter on the stand.

Rex Wild takes the jury through an exhausting line up of witnesses - some even appearing to be of more use to the defence than the prosecution. He gambles that Northern Territory people are solid people who are interested in facts, not soap opera. But will the jury convict?

After an agonising wait, the jury returns its verdict. Murdoch is guilty of murder and attempted abduction, and sentenced to 28 years in prison. Joanne Lees can finally get on with her life without public and press scrutiny of her every move. It is a life, however, without the man she had always hoped to share it with – Peter Falconio.

JOANNE FROGGATT: Q&A

What attracted you to the part of Joanne Lees?

Having done two true-life dramas before about major crimes (Danielle Cable: Eyewitness and See No Evil: The Moors Murders), I know it’s a really interesting journey, mainly because of the research you have to do. This story particularly appealed to me because I followed the press about it at the time. I remember Joanne saying she had moved her hands from the back to the front of her, and everyone saying “oh, that’s impossible”. I can remember thinking, ‘why is that difficult?’ because I can do that, and I thought everyone else could. And that made me think ‘I don’t understand why no-one believes her’. I know she didn’t always come across particularly well in interviews, but I believed her and I didn’t quite understand why she was getting such a hard time. It was great to then get the chance to play her.

What were the main challenges in playing the role?

As an actress, you are constantly trying to illustrate what people are thinking or feeling through their emotions. But this was more complicated for me because Joanne was so restrained. Obviously I wanted to show that she’s devastated and she’s had this traumatic experience, but I also had to show why people didn’t believe her and why people took her as cold. When you see Joanne on her own, she is more vulnerable and open but when you see her with other people she is protective of herself and her emotions - she’s not somebody who shows emotions freely to people she doesn’t know. So that’s something I was acutely aware of – with every character I was interacting with I was thinking “how well do I know this person? How many times have I met them? How much would I want them to know about me?” It was about juggling levels of guardedness all the time. That was quite challenging.

How much research did you do for the role?

I read a book called And Then The Darkness about the murder. I also read through newspaper clippings but I stopped because they stopped being helpful to me. Some of them were obviously very detrimental towards Joanne and they didn’t really give me any information about her – they were just full of snide comments. But the main, most helpful, piece of research was watching the entire Martin Bashir interview. I was lucky enough to have access to the unedited version, so I had several hours worth of Joanne talking in her words, unedited, without anyone else interfering in it. She told the story from beginning to end, which was second best to getting to meet her.

I could also watch her mannerisms and how she changed how she spoke and her body language depending on what she was talking about. She did find it very difficult to talk about Pete - you could almost see her physically recoil when she was talking about him. She had certain mannerisms too, like clearing her throat and flicking her hair. She also has quite an inflection to her voice, I think because she had been out in Australia so long - she doesn’t have the accent, but has the inflection at the end of each sentence. I’ve tried to incorporate as many of those mannerisms as I can into my portrayal of her.

What impression have you taken away about Joanne having played her?

I have the utmost respect and admiration for Joanne. She must be such a strong girl to have survived the entire experience. Not only did she experience the attack – which is your worst nightmare or like something from a horror film - but then to have all that bad press attention as well….you must feel like the whole world is against you. It’s not in the film, but her mum was actually ill at the time and died a year after Pete. To lose the two people who were most important in your life and then have the whole world almost branding you a murderer doesn’t bear thinking about. I think I’d have probably sat in the corner and cried and not come out. But she did.

I think what people sometimes see as her “hardness” is what got her through. If she wasn’t the sort of person who was guarded and controlled her emotions in public she might not have come through the other side - I think it was that dignity and strength of character which ultimately got her through. We need to put it in perspective - she was a young girl, away from her family and friends on the other side of the world, she’s got this whole new self that she’s found. And then everything fell apart. To go through all of that and to get through the other side…I think she deserves a medal.

This is your third major real life drama role. What attracts you to these roles?

You really have to delve into the facts and you are privy to a lot of information which you might not get as a member of the general public, which is really, really interesting. And it makes my job more meaningful, to me. It’s our history basically. I think it’s really important to tell these stories. It’s a different way to speak to people about things, rather than reading them in the paper, which is one journalist’s opinion on the story. Hopefully Murder In The Outback shows another side to this particular story, rather than just going over the speculation and the conspiracy theories which dominated the press coverage.

The one thing I wanted was that the attack came across as a terrifying experience. It’s very easy after an event with all the press attention to say “oh well, she should have done this”. But what people forget is how terrifying that would have been - Joanne would have been in shock and traumatised. People can forget that. Until you see it acted, which really makes you think “oh my god – I didn’t think about how scary it must have been”.

How do you feel about the fact that Joanne Lees was not involved in the making of this film?

Well, obviously I’d have loved to have met her but the next best thing was having the unedited version of the Martin Bashir interview. Kate Brooke, the writer, went to the trial of Bradley Murdoch so I’d read through her notes and Joanne’s testimony. I felt as though I’d done as much as I could.

I don’t want to speak on her behalf but, from what I know about her, Joanne is very wary and very guarded with herself and her story and the way that it is portrayed. She wanted to do her book, by all accounts, because it was her definitive version of events in her own words. She has complete say over what is in that book. That’s her saying “that’s all I’m going to do, and I’m going to move on now”. Doing a TV project and filming it, there’s always going to be a variety of artistic sides to it - a director’s point of view, a producer’s point of view, an actor’s portrayal. You wouldn’t be able to control that to the extent that you could your own book.

I do feel a responsibility to Joanne because I had to make my own mind up about how to play her. All I can hope for is that she watches it and thinks I’ve done a good job.

Murder In The Outback, ITV1 Network Sunday 8 April 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM