While few will fail to be impressed by the way Joanne Lees survived her ordeal in the middle of the Australian outback, her account of the attack does not address some of the key claims she made in the early days of the investigation.

More specifically, she glosses over one of the crucial episodes — how she got from the cab of the gunman’s utility to the rear tray.

“He grabbed me and the next thing I knew I was in the back of his ute (utility truck),” she says in her book, which provided a perfect opportunity to clear up any confusion.

From the outset, eyebrows had been raised about the standard of the police investigation and in particular the thoroughness of the search in the undergrowth at Barrow Creek where Joanne had hidden for several hours.

Superintendent Jeanette Kerr recounted how she stumbled across important evidence at the crime scene — apparently the two pieces of black tape Ms Lees had described as biting off the manacles that she was restrained with — three months after the area was supposed to have been examined in detail immediately following the incident.

Further discoveries were to follow. When crime scene examiner Ian Spilsbury, who was also nearby, looked under the tree he found a lip balm stick, corroborating Joanne’s earlier story that she used the balm to grease her wrists in an attempt to slide the handcuffs off.

This was an acutely embarrassing admission for the police. How could they have overlooked such crucial evidence when they combed the crime scene in July? What did it say about their search methods? And how did it reflect on the standard of the overall inquiry?

CRIKEY: Read Roger Maynard’s full examination of the many loose ends in Joanne Lees’ evidence on the website here.