Joanne Lees and boyfriend Peter Falconio attacked in Outback in 2001 Bradley Murdoch murdered Peter, dumped body, and assaulted Joanne

The 43-year-old has returned on a mission to honour Peter Falconio - who was shot dead - with a roadside memorial to help warn travellers of the potential dangers of the outback, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Ms Lees, who works as a social worker in her hometown of Huddersfield, was involved in one of the greatest crime mysteries to be played out in the Australian outback where Bradley Murdoch executed her boyfriend on July 14, 2001.

Joanne Lees was touring Australia with boyfriend, British backpacker Peter Falconio, in their orange VW Kombi campervan when he was murdered in the outback on July 14, 2001

However, she has since returned and has been living quietly in Sydney and Canberra since May.

Back in August this year, it is reported Ms Lees met with Aboriginal elders in Ti Tree, 200km north of Alice Springs, to discuss a memorial and the Aborigines also agreed to continue to look for the remains of Peter Falconio.

Ti Tree was the last place her and Mr Falconio watched the sunset together and she does not want the memorial at the murder site near Barrow Creek because it was too painful.

The murder took place while the couple drove their orange VW Kombi van near Barrow Creek in Australia's vast outback. His body has never been found

In her trip to Ti Tree, Ms Lees was accompanied with Libby Andrew, the former police officer who stayed with her in the aftermath of the 2001 murder.

During the trip she also met with Gwen Brown, a former officer aid who was one of the first officers on the crime scene, and met for the first time with Aboriginal couple Pam Brown and Jasper Haines.

Ms Brown and Mr Haines provided pivotal testimonies at Mr Murdoch's trial to help sentence him to jail.

The funds will be raised in an an exclusive, one-day sale of Aboriginal Art in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Women's Centre on October 28, with the sculpture to be a car-sized bird called 'Falcon Dreaming'.

Ms Lees' art event is supported by 2015 Australian of the Year anti-violence campaigner Rosie Batty and will be opened by the British High Commissioner.

The trip to Australia is only the second time she has been back since 2001, when Ms Lees and Peter Falconio, who was 28 at the time, were touring Australia in a VW Kombi campervan when they were ambushed as they drove north to Alice Springs by Interstate drug runner and trucker Bradley Murdoch.

Tough: Ms Lees, now 42, left, was at the centre of a global media storm after surviving the attack that left her boyfriend Peter dead. Her evidence in court, right, helped convict drifter Bradley Murdoch

Trauma: Since Mr Falconio's murder in the Australian outback Ms Lees, who was living in Brighton at the time has moved back to West Yorkshire and forced a career as a social worker for Kirklees Council

Horror: Recalling the night Mr Falconio (left) was killed, Ms Lees told the court they had been followed by a four-wheel drive vehicle when the driver signalled them to stop due to an apparent problem with the exhaust

Murder: It was then Mr Falconio got out of the VW to talk to the man who had pulled up behind them that she heard what she thought was a shot. The stranger appeared at the side of the vehicle and dragged Ms Lees out

Although she escaped Murdoch's attempts to hunt her down by hiding in the Outback, near Alice Springs, she then found herself a prime suspect for the murder even though Murdoch's blood was discovered on her T-shirt. The drifter was eventually found guilty and is currently serving a 28-year sentence.

In the ensuing court case, Joanne recounted how she and Mr Falconio had been followed by a four-wheel drive vehicle, the driver of which signalled them to stop because of an apparent problem with the exhaust.

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In the days after the incident, in which Miss Lees has told of escaping from her assailant's vehicle and hiding in nearby bushland until he drove away, her story was greeted with scepticism by Aboriginal trackers looking for clues that might have supported her account of the stranger who turned her holiday trip into a nightmare.

That sceptism grew to the point that a Facebook page has been set up entitled Bradley Murdoch Deserves a New Trial. It includes comments such as 'poor Brad is serving time for a crime he didn't commit.'

Joanne Lees herself has admitted she lied to the court during Murdoch's trial.

The fact that she had been having a sexual relationship with an Irish backpacker called Nick Riley before she and Mr Falconio set off to drive through central Australia had to be dragged out of her - as did her confession that she had sent an email to Riley in the days after Mr Falconio's disappearance, expressing her hopes of meeting up with the Irishman in Berlin.

In order to keep her flings with Riley a secret, he used the name 'Steph' in their email correspondence. She initially told the court that she didn't know who Steph was, but later admitted it was a pseudonym for Riley.

That cover-up, perhaps Miss Lees' attempts to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit she had been cheating on Mr Falconio, played a relatively small part in the discrepancies that had arisen in her account of what has sometimes been described as 'The Incident at Barrow Creek'.

But there were emails, she has admitted, that she had deleted, because her accounts had become full and she had to clear them.

She has told how she and Mr Falconio smoked marijuana during their trip through the outback before they were flagged down and attacked.

Her story also raised questions which have refused to go away.

Her description of her attacker did not match Murdoch, who friends said had a crewcut at the time of the incident. His height was much taller than what Miss Lees had described. And perhaps Murdoch's most distinctive feature, his mother once told the Mail, was his missing front teeth, the result of eating too much chocolate.

Her attacker's dog, she said, was brown - while Murdoch's dog was a dalmation, with its distinctive black dots.

And it would have been impossible for her to clamber into the back of a vehicle that Murdoch owned because his cabin was sealed - with no access to the rear.

Miss Lees responded in court by saying she might have been mistaken and had probably been thrust into the rear of the vehicle through the side canvas. But she would not have known that was not possible either, because underneath Murdoch's canvas was metal trellis-work to deter thieves.

Aboriginal trackers brought to the area the day after the incident could find no sign of a dog in the area Miss Lees said she had hidden. Dog owners have constantly pointed out that after being let out of a vehicle after many miles the first thing will do is urinate or more. And why didn't the dog sniff her out - many doubters have asked.

There is little doubt that Mr Falconio was murdered and Joanna Lees assaulted by a third party at Barrow Creek - Miss Lees' knees were scraped and her wrists were still bound with handcuffs made from cable ties. Mr Falconio's body has never been discovered.

Murdoch's supporters claim that the DNA found on Miss Lees' T-shirt and which had been the prosecution's strongest point against the drug-runner was highly questionable - if she had struggled with her attacker so violently as he sat on her and not only bound her hands but tried to tie her legs, his DNA would have been all over her. But there was just that speck.

However, the court heard all of the evidence and was satisfied Bradley was the murderer.

It was when Mr Falconio got out of the VW to talk to the man who had pulled up behind them that she heard what she thought was a shot. Then that stranger, with his long dark hair and moustache, appeared at the side of the vehicle and dragged her out.

She fought, bit and scratched at the man on the ground before she was thrown into the front cabin of his vehicle.

As he attended to something at the rear of the VW she told police, she scrambled over the front seats of the man's van into the rear, before dropping to the road and dashing into the darkness of the roadside bushes.

She remained there for five hours as the man and his dog came looking for her before he went away and she found the courage to run to the road and wave down a passing truck and raise the alarm. Mr Falconio's body has never been found.

The court hearing in Darwin, northern Australia, saw the brutish 6ft 4in rogue, who in his earlier years had been convicted of causing a death by dangerous driving and had been jailed for a gun offence, sentenced to life in jail after a speck of his DNA was found on Joanne's t-shirt.

But Joanne is serving her own sentence, for she must live with the memories of the tragic incident.

For the last eight years, she has lived away from the public eye in a two-bedroomed terraced house in Berry Brow, Huddersfield, a working-class village blighted by high unemployment and soaring crime rates.

Instead, Joanne has thrown herself into her work. When she returned to normal life after her boyfriend's death, she vowed to go back to college, and studied Sociology at Sheffield University.

Now she works as a social worker at the Directorate for Children and Young People for Kirklees Council.

Her life has become work and sleep, and she does not appear to have family close by. Her mother Jennifer tragically died of lupus only a year after her boyfriend's murder in June 2002. Her stepfather Vince James, whom she used to be very close to, now rarely sees her. Her only half-brother, Andrew James, is not close to her.

In an interview with Woman's Day last year, Vince James said: 'Nine times out of time she won't answer the phone, it's difficult to get hold of her, I don't know why. She works full-time, she's a social worker of some sort. I don't see her as much. She goes to bed early, she gets up early in the morning, it's difficult to see her. You'd have to ask her why.'

Joanne's quiet lifestyle is a far cry from a decade ago when she seemed to embrace the limelight, releasing a book called No Turning Back. However, said the book was simply to help other victims like her.

She has now wound down her two writing and book publishing businesses - Joanna Lees Ltd and Joanna Rachael Lees Ltd. Their last accounts were in April 2014 and dissolved the same year with assets of £20,000 [$37,500].

If she was wealthy as a result of the book, Joanne didn't flaunt it. She drives a simple four-door Corsa and her modest two-bedroom house is plain.

She has remained in touch with the Falconios, who live just seven miles away in the pretty village of Hepworth, west Yorkshire, close to where the BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine is filmed.

Peter's parents Joan and Luciano have struggled to move on from their son's death and it still haunts his siblings - brothers Nick, Paul, and Mark. Now, neighbours say, Joan and Luciano spend increasing amounts of time in Luciano's birth country, Italy.

The last public act either Joanne or the Falconio family took part in is to petition for a lasting memorial for Peter to be put in Alice Springs - which has not materialised - and Joanne's previous relationship with her local newspaper has petered out.

Joanne has recently had to endure a number of false claims in the last few years, including a cruel campaign by Vienna-based Dr Keith Allan Noble, who claims that Joanne is the murderer and even put up a £25,000 [$46,000] reward poster around Alice Springs appealing for information which would lead to her arrest.

Dr Noble recently claimed: 'Murdoch was set up. It was a show trial. So-called evidence was manipulated, other evidence was withheld from the trial. There was not one shred of incontrovertible evidence presented at the trial that proved guilt, or proved a murder took place.'

In an exclusive interview in his Alice Springs prison five years ago Murdoch, then 55, told the Daily Mail that he had been set up, despite a speck of his blood being found on Miss Lees' t-shirt.

'It's her false account against me that has led to me being in here,' he said in the visitor's area. 'They haven't found Mr Falconio, yet they've convicted me of murdering him.

'The police have had all the time in the world to find the body of Mr Falconio. They say I've hidden 'out there' - 10 long years to search while I, according to their case, had just hours to hide him. Show me the body. Show me the body of the man I am supposed to have murdered.'

Modest: Ms Lees now lives modestly in Huddersfield, where her former boyfriend was also from. She now works as a social worker at the Directorate for Children and Young People for Kirklees Council

Controversy: She attracted criticism at the time for her demeanour in the aftermath of the attack, wearing a 'cheeky monkey' top for a press conference to appeal for the man who at that stage was thought to have abducted her boyfriend to give themselves up

Ambush: The young couple were enjoying a trip around Australia when they were ambushed and Peter was apparently shot dead

Court appearance: Ms Lees pictured in 2005 leaving the the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin, where her evidence helped to convict drifter Bradley Murdoch of murder

Jailed: Ms Lees said she fought, bit and scratched at the man on the ground before she was thrown into the front cabin of his vehicle. She hid in the outback in the dead of night for five hours as the man searched for her. Pictured: Drifter Bradley Murdoch whose DNA was on Ms Lees' t-shirt, was jailed for 28 years for murder

Outback attack: The scene near Ti Tree in the Northern Territory near to Alice Springs, Australia, where Mr Falconio and Ms Lees were ambushed by a violent gunman

Vehicle: The VW Kombi belonging to Ms Lees and her British boyfriend Mr Falconio which was impounded as an evidence, pictured at the Northern Territory Supreme Court for his murder trial Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005

Joanne, for her part, refrains from ever commenting on the tragedy she so narrowly escaped from. She has no social media presence and given up even using her previous monikers, Daisy Bell and Daisy Lees.

In her book No Turning Back, now available for one penny on Amazon, she said her only reason to gain publicity was to help other victims, adding: 'The book is for me, my family, the Falconios, for Pete - and for anyone who has been the victim of violent crime.'

One of the UK's leading forensic psychologists Dr Ian Stephen - who has studied serial killers and was the chief adviser on the ITV hit detective series Cracker - says that it's not uncommon for a victim to suffer years later.

The consultant forensic clinical psychologist said: 'You find some people become traumatised later in time. At the start, it doesn't seem to affect them, they carry on as normal. It's only later in life, something else can trigger the memories.

'It's a form of depression. Something triggers that reality to come back. It gets them thinking about things and they start having regrets. I've come across a lot of people with afterthoughts like I wish I had done this or that. It's almost a wistfulness.

Memorial: Meanwhile the family of Mr Falconio have finally placed 'a most fitting' memorial to him 15 years on at a secret spot in Australia. Mum Joan told how the new memorial will help ease their heartache.

Remembrance: Mr Falconio's mother Joan told MailOnline: 'We want to keep it private, we are a very close family, and we will not be saying exactly where it is or what form it is. But we're happy with it.'

'They become self-contained and detached from people and life. It also locks away the feelings that are negative so that they do not have to face them. Whereas their previous presentation of normality is like a mask.

'If it makes them depressed, you need to go and talk things through. Psychotherapy is all about talking and remembering the past. They need therapy to help bring them back to the past and get all of those feelings in perspective. It's overwhelming, you get pre-occupied, it's a weight on your shoulders.'

Meanwhile the family of Mr Falconio have finally placed 'a most fitting' memorial to him 15 years on at a secret spot in Australia.

Mum Joan told how the new memorial which they have campaigned tirelessly for will help ease their heartache.

Murderer: The court hearing in Darwin, northern Australia, saw the brutish 6ft 4in rogue, who in his earlier years had been convicted of causing a death by dangerous driving and had been jailed for a gun offence, sentenced to life in jail after a speck of his DNA was found on Ms Lees' t-shirt

She said: 'We're very pleased we have a special memorial to Peter after all this time. It has recently been placed in Australia. It is most fitting for our son, we chose it but have not seen it yet.

'We are hoping to visit it one day but we don't know if it will be possible, not because of the expense but because of our age and health.'

The family have chosen not to share details of their commemorative gesture with the world.

Joan explained: 'We want to keep it private, we are a very close family, and we will not be saying exactly where it is or what form it is. But we're happy with it.'

She and husband Luciano, who have three other sons, all live in the same village of Hepworth, near Huddersfield, West Yorks.

Joan added the family remain friends with Ms Lees.

Alone: Ms Lees wrote a book No Turning Back in the aftermath of the violent attack that killed her boyfriend but has now wound down those companies

New career: At the time, she said: 'The book is for me, my family, the Falconios, for Pete - and for anyone who has been the victim of violent crime.'

Close: The Falconios told MailOnline they remain close to Ms Lees 15 years on. Mum Joan added: 'We're doing alright, we're okay as a family. We're still in contact with Joanna, we get on, we still see her.'

Justice: His parents Luciano and Joan Falconio, pictured at the Supreme Court in Darwin, October 2005, to see their son's then-alleged murderer stand trial

Joan, speaking exclusively to MailOnline ahead of the anniversary, told of their relief they had won the long battle to erect a memorial.

The family with Joanne's support had petitioned for a tribute to be placed in Alice Springs after failing to be granted permission from the Town Council. They called on Megan Hunt, British Ambassador in Australia, who helped it become a reality.

Joan, speaking from her comfortable detached home which she shares with youngest son Mark, 36, explained: 'Megan Hunt helped us to do this. Without her it may not have happened so we are very grateful. The memorial has gone up in time for the anniversary of Peter's death.'

She added: 'We're doing alright, we're okay as a family. We're still in contact with Joanna, we get on, we still see her.'

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Joanne Lees and boyfriend Peter Falconio attacked in Outback in 2001 Bradley Murdoch murdered Peter, dumped body, and assaulted Joanne

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