THE brother of a North Yorkshire backpacker who was thrown off a bridge in Australia was at a pre-trial court hearing today to see a man charged with her murder.

Ian Previte, 31, is accused of pushing Caroline Stuttle of York off a bridge to her death on April 10, 2002.

Her brother Richard Stuttle was in Bundaberg Magistrates Court for the reopening of the committal hearing today.

Miss Stuttle, 19, was on a working holiday in Australia and was walking across the 30ft high Burnett River Bridge when she was thrown off. She died of severe head and spinal injuries.

The committal hearing, at which a magistrate must decide if police evidence against Previte is strong enough to merit a trial, resumed yesterday, four months after it began last September.

Previte, who has not entered a plea, faces a life sentence if sent for trial and convicted.

Police detective senior constable David Batt told the court yesterday somebody had scrawled a confession and apology on a wooden picnic table in Bundaberg shortly after Miss Stuttle's death.

Previte has declined to comment on the evidence, which police examined after unbolting the wood from the rest of the table, following an anonymous tip-off.

Batt said the writing had been sent for analysis.

In testimony last year, two jail inmates claimed Previte had confessed to them that he killed Miss Stuttle.

Bundaberg is a small farming town 220 miles north of the Queensland state capital of Brisbane.

Mr Stuttle, a chef, has been in Australia for two months travelling with a friend.

He was previously in the country for a week with his father in the aftermath of his sister's death.

''This time it is nice to have some good memories of Bundaberg,'' he said.