Morcombe witness tells of fearful boy

A man has told a Brisbane court of seeing a scared-looking boy with three men on the day Daniel Morcombe went missing.

Brett Peter Cowan is on trial in the Supreme Court charged with murdering the Sunshine Coast schoolboy.

On Wednesday, Brisbane man Joszef Gebri told the court he saw a boy and three men standing near an old blue sedan and a white van on a dirt road at Beerwah, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, about 6.15pm on December 7, 2003.

That was the day 13-year-old Daniel vanished.

Mr Gebri was driving on the nearby Bruce Highway when he saw the group.

He said the boy, who looked about 12, held an expression of "apprehension and possibly fear".

Cowan, 44, has pleaded not guilty to murder, indecent treatment of a child and interference with a corpse.

The trial continues.