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A senior detective has told a court he believes the former foster mother of missing boy William Tyrrell knows where he is.

The woman appeared in court on Thursday, accused of lying to the NSW Crime Commission.

She cannot be named for legal reasons, but is the former foster mother of missing boy William Tyrrell.

The charges do not relate to William, who was aged three when he went missing from a home at Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast in 2014.

The woman is accused of lying to the commission about whether she had ever struck another child in her care with a wooden spoon.

"I have formed the view (she) knows where William Tyrrell is," Detective Sergeant Andrew Lonergan told Downing Centre Local Court.

Barrister John Stratton SC, defending the woman, said that was a false belief.

Police charged her for allegedly lying, in an attempt to pressure her, he said.

"You are hoping to break her spirit," Mr Stratton suggested.

"Our main objective is to find out where William Tyrrell is," Det Sgt Lonergan said.

Audio recording from listening devices placed in the home recorded what police allege is the woman hitting a child with a wooden spoon.

The child can be heard threatening to call the police beforehand.

A woman is then heard telling the child to "stand up" three times.

"Where'd you put the wooden spoon?" The court heard a woman on the recording say.

The child then pleads, screams and cries, and is told to turn around and move her hands before smacking sounds are heard.

"She's still going on about it," the woman is heard telling her husband, who also cannot be named, in a later phone call intercepted by police.

Det Sgt Lonergan denied he and his colleague Det Sgt Scott Jamieson deliberately lied to the woman to upset her during the interview when they told her police knew where the boy's body was.

Det Sgt Jamieson, who told the woman police knew where William Tyrrell's body was and what happened to him, also denied deliberately lying about it.

"I knew the area in which I believed William was," he told the court.

Both officers said they believed the boy was somewhere in Kendall, however both also acknowledged no body had been found.

The court heard the woman did not admit using a wood spoon, when police asked her about hitting or kicking the other child.

Police prosecutor Amin Assaad submitted she had not said she couldn't remember or was not sure whether she had hit the child with a wooden spoon, but that she said she had "never" done it.

"Unfortunately, that answer ... is an outright lie," he said.

Mr Stratton said she had not been given adequate information.

"No details were given, she was not given the benefit of hearing the tape played," he said.

He submitted it would make no sense for her to admit hitting or kicking the child and then deny it.

She was distressed during the interview and could have made an honest mistake, Mr Stratton suggested.

Det Sgt Lonergan had earlier agreed with Mr Stratton that a mistake is not the same as a lie, after the officer mistakenly gave the wrong date for the expiry date for warrants used to surveil the woman and her husband.

The court will resume on Friday.

© AAP 2022

U2 frontman Bono has opened his book tour singing, joking and shouting out his life story to thousands of fans at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre.

He even performed one song in Italian, a flawlessly operatic take of "Torna a Surriento."

"This is all a little surreal," he noted at one point. "But it seems to be going well."

The 62-year-old singer, songwriter and humanitarian described himself as an eternal boy (born Paul David Hewson) with his fists "in the air," a "grandstanding" rock star and a baritone trying to be a tenor.

He is now a published and best-selling author, his "Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story" out this week and already in the top 10 on Amazon.com.

Through "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name" and other U2 classics, he traces his biography from his stifling childhood home in Dublin and the grief over the early death of his mother Iris Hewson to the formation of the band that made him a global celebrity and his enduring marriage to Alison Stewart.

Former President Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks and U2 guitarist The Edge were among his famous admirers in the audience, which often stood and cheered and sang along.

For the 90-minute plus "Stories of Surrender" show, billed as "an evening of words, music, and some mischief," Bono wore a plain black blazer, matching pants and added colour with his orange-tinted glasses.

He opened with an account from his book of his heart surgery in 2016, but otherwise pranced and leapt like a man who had never seen the inside of a hospital and belted out songs written decades ago without any sense he had forgotten what inspired them.

Ticket prices were rock star levels: thousands of dollars for the best seats and well into the hundreds even for obstructed views.

Compared to a U2 show, the setting was relatively intimate -- handwritten illustrations on screens hanging toward the back of the stage and a few tables and chairs that Bono used as props to climb on or to simulate conversations.

With warm and comic mimicry, he recalled phone calls with Luciano Pavarotti and his pleas of "Bono, Bono, Bono" as the opera star recruited him to perform at a benefit show in Modena, Italy, and once turned up at U2's studio on short notice -- with a film crew.

Bono also re-enacted his many tense bar room meetings with his father, who seemed to regard his son's career as some kind of failed business venture.

Brendan Robert Hewson's rough facade did once collapse unexpectedly -- when he met Princess Diana, an encounter Bono described as like watching centuries of Irish loathing of the royals "gone in eight seconds."

"One princess, and we're even," Bono added.

He spoke often of loss, of his mother when he was a teenager and of his father in 2001.

But he also described his life as a story of presence, whether of his religious faith, his wife and children, or of his bandmates.

After what he called the characteristic Irish response to a child's outsized ambitions -- to pretend they don't exist -- he called himself "blessed," and added that "what was silence has been filled, mostly, with music."

© AP 2022

Alex de Minaur, for so long a 'nearly-man' of world tennis, has earned a major career breakthrough by defeating former world No.1 Daniil Medvedev in an epic affair at the Paris Masters.

The Sydneysider, who's built an excellent career while always seemingly coming up just short against the true elite, earned his first-ever victory over a top-five ranked player at the 19th attempt with his thrilling 6-4 2-6 7-5 victory over the Russian.

De Minaur had lost all his previous four encounters with the world No.3 including two matches in which he'd won the first set - and it looked as if history would repeat itself on Wednesday.

But the 23-year-old Australian, ever the battler, regrouped, went on the offensive after what had been a remarkable cat-and-mouse affair and won an absorbing contest in two hours and 46 minutes.

The Russian ended up smashing his racquet into the court amid a chorus of jeers from his Parisian audience who'd already enjoyed baiting him during the contest - but he was quick to congratulate his never-say-die conqueror at the net.

"It's a good one to get, for sure," de Minaur said.

"It's the end of the year, everyone's a bit tired, but I'm very proud of my performance. I just played very smart.

"I knew it was going to be a chess match out there, both baiting each other to be aggressive, but you also didn't want to be too aggressive at times.

"It was an absolute battle and I'm very happy I was able to come out on top."

The world No.25 de Minaur will take back his Australia No.1 spot from Nick Kyrgios if he wins his next match, a last-16 contest on Thursday against American Frances Tiafoe, the world No.21 who defeated rising Briton Jack Draper 6-3 7-5.

In the first match of the night session, American Tommy Paul stunned new dad and second seed Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-7 (4-7) 6-1.

Nadal, the 22-time grand slam singles champion who has never won the Paris Masters, was playing for the first time in two months and succumbed in two hours and 33 minutes.

"It's probably my best win," Paul said.

"I was obviously pumped for the matchup because it's always interesting when you play one of the Big Three. I've only played him the second time, but the first time I was so nervous. It was weird, this time I wasn't really nervous.

"He got the first set, but I feel like I played pretty well from the jump."

Paul will next face another Spaniard in Pablo Carreno Busta after his 7-6 (7-2) 2-6 6-4 victory over Canadian Denis Shapovalov.

Current world No.1 Carlos Alcaraz, also from Spain, sailed into the third round with a 6-4 6-4 win over Yoshihito Nishioka, while Felix Auger-Aliassime, a 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 7-6 (8-6) winner over Mikael Ymer, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who beat Dan Evans 6-3 6-4, also progressed.

The ninth and 10th seeds were not as fortunate with American Taylor Fritz beaten 7-5 5-7 6-4 by French veteran Gilles Simon and Poland's Hubert Hurkacz defeated by Holger Rune of Denmark 7-5 6-1.

© AAP 2022