Murdoch accused of wrapping head in jacket

DARWIN - A prosecutor has accused Bradley John Murdoch of shooting Peter Falconio and wrapping the British backpacker's head in his girlfriend's jacket to avoid getting blood in his vehicle.

Murdoch yesterday finished testifying in his own defence after two days in the witness box in the Northern Territory Supreme Court trial.

Murdoch, 47, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Falconio beside the outback Stuart Highway in 2001.

He has also denied assaulting the Briton's girlfriend Joanne Lees and depriving her of her liberty.

Prosecutor Rex Wild completed his cross-examination firing a volley of questions at the Broome mechanic about whether he followed the British couple in their orange Kombi van as they headed north along the Stuart Highway, on July 14, 2001.

During the intense exchange, Murdoch denied pulling over the Kombi, shooting Mr Falconio, threatening and assaulting Ms Lees and then panicking and driving back to Alice Springs to refuel at a truck stop.

"You had to dispose of Peter Falconio?" Mr Wild asked.

"No," Murdoch replied in the witness box.

"You are a fastidious man?" Mr Wild asked.

"I am meticulous ... a bit," the accused replied.

"You didn't want blood on your vehicle?" the prosecutor asked.

"I never had Mr Falconio in my vehicle," Murdoch said.

"And you used the denim jacket to wrap his head in?" Mr Wild said.

"No I did not," he replied.

The court has heard several personal items belonging to Mr Falconio and Ms Lees - including her denim jacket - have not been seen since the night the Briton disappeared.

Murdoch could not explain how DNA allegedly matching or consistent with his profile came to be on the back of Ms Lees' T-shirt, on a gearstick in the Kombi van and deep within the layers of the cable-tie handcuffs allegedly used to restrain Ms Lees.

Frustrated with his time in the witness box, Murdoch earlier accused the Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions of trying to trick him.

The heated exchange came as Mr Wild grilled Murdoch on specific details of his vehicle, the type of hair ties he used instead of elastic bands, and the timing of a drug-running trip through Central Australia the weekend Mr Falconio disappeared.

Murdoch has admitted being in Alice Springs at the same time as the British couple, but said he left the Central Australian town that afternoon to drive along the Tanami track towards Broome.

"You realise that your times put you very close, within an hour or so, of where Ms Lees was on the Stuart Highway?" Mr Wild asked.

"I believe so," he said.

The court also heard that some of Murdoch's close friends and his father asked him if he was the man in truck stop security footage filmed at Alice Springs in the hours after the backpacker disappeared.

"I knew it wasn't me there ... so end of subject," he said.

The trial continues.

- AAP