The girlfriend of backpacker Peter Falconio arrived in court today under heavy guard to give evidence but was delayed by legal argument.

Joanne Lees, a travel agent from Hove, was due to continue giving her statement at the committal hearing of the man accused of her boyfriend's murder on a remote Australian highway in July 2001.

But legal wrangling over whether some evidence should be withheld from the public put a stop to proceedings at the court in Darwin.

Yesterday, the 30-year-old endured an emotional 90 minutes as she recalled the events of the fateful night.

The accused, mechanic Bradley John Murdoch, 48, listened intently throughout.

Miss Lees described her final hours with Mr Falconio.

They had bought a Volkswagen camper van in Sydney and were touring the Northern Territory when they stopped to watch the sun go down and smoke cannabis.

The couple drove off north but were flagged down by a mystery driver who was pointing to the back of their van.

Ignoring Miss Lees' appeals for him to drive on, Mr Falconio stopped to investigate.

Miss Lees told the court her boyfriend spoke to a man at the back of the vehicle, then returned for his cigarettes and asked Miss Lees to rev the engine while he went to check the exhaust.

She said: "I heard a bang. Like the sound of an engine backfiring, the sound of a gunshot.

"I turned to look through the window and I saw a man stood there with a gun."

Miss Lees said she was pushed into the passenger seat and ordered to put her head between her knees and her hands behind her back.

The gunman then allegedly tied her hands together loosely with electric cord, tried to gag her mouth with tape, pulled a canvas sack over her head and bundled her into his vehicle.

Miss Lees said: "I was shouting for Pete.

"I was shouting for help. I asked him if he was going to rape me and had he shot Pete. He came back and said 'No'."

Miss Lees said she managed to escape when the gunman turned away and she slid from the back of his truck.

She ran to bushes at the side of the road and hid in panic as her attacker searched for her.

Miss Lees said: "I could hear him, the crunching of dried grass and branches under his feet. I wasn't even breathing."

Eventually the gunman gave up and drove away.

Miss Lees hid for a further five hours before daring to venture back on to the road.

Truck driver Vince Millar and his friend saw her and used a pair of bolt cutters to set her hands free.

Miss Lees was supported in court by Mark Sanders, one of Mr Falconio's best friends from his time at Brighton University, and the dead man's brothers Nick, 36, and Paul, 34.

She arrived in court today flanked by police who shielded her from the media.

Dressed in the same black and white outfit she wore yesterday, she waited in the witness room as lawyers argued about whether some prosecution evidence should be withheld from publication to ensure Murdoch received a fair trial.

Magistrate Alasdair McGregor upheld suppressions he had ordered on some sections of the prosecution's graphic opening submission.

He said: "The Australian common law and the National Territory common law seems to be all in one - that a person accused should have a fair trial."

"I uphold the validity of my orders."

It was unclear whether Miss Lees, 30, would return to the witness box at the resumption of the hearing tomorrow morning.

At the end of the hearing, which is expected to last several weeks, Mr McGregor will decide whether there is enough evidence for Murdoch, who denies the charges, to face a full jury trial.

The hearing continues.