Falconio evidence may have been planted, says defence

DARWIN - A defence lawyer has questioned whether evidence may have been planted in the case of missing backpacker Peter Falconio.

The trial of 47-year-old Broome mechanic Bradley John Murdoch yesterday focused on the police investigation.

Defence lawyer Grant Algie quizzed Alice Springs crime scene examiner Ian Spilsbury on why police failed to find evidence at the crime scene until three months after the alleged July 2001 attack.

Police initially found a lip balm lid under a tree where Falconio's girlfriend Joanne Lees may have hidden. The Northern Territory Supreme Court heard that police did not immediately continue searching. A lip balm tube and tape were found there three months later.

"If we'd seen the lip gloss we would have collected it," Spilsbury said.

"Is that because there wasn't a lip gloss there?" Algie asked.

"I don't know," the officer said.

Spilsbury was later asked if he knew whether "somebody put the lip balm and the tape" under the tree in October, and replied: "No".

- AAP