Backpacker who posed naked on sacred mountain fined £1,000

A British woman blamed for triggering an earthquake after stripping on top of a sacred Malaysian mountain has been fined £1,000 (€1,385) and sentenced to three days in jail.

Backpacker Eleanor Hawkins (23) and three other western tourists, who were also fined, have already served the time, the BBC and Sky News reported.

She had admitted to the public nuisance offence during an appearance at Kota Kinabalu Magistrates' Court in Malaysia on Friday.

The group of backpackers were arrested after photos emerged of them stripping naked on Mount Kinabalu.

Ms Hawkins, an aeronautical engineering graduate from Derby, was arrested at Tawau airport on Tuesday as she was flying from the island of Borneo to the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

She appeared in court alongside three other defendants — Canadian siblings Lindsey and Danielle Petersen, and a Dutch man — following the mountaintop incident.

A magnitude-5.9 earthquake struck the 13,400ft-high mountain last Friday, killing 18 people and leaving hundreds more stranded.

Sabah state deputy chief minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan blamed the earthquake six days later on the travellers showing “disrespect to the sacred mountain”.

The group of 10 tourists stripped naked before taking photos at the peak of Kinabalu on May 30th.

Ms Hawkins’ father Timothy Hawkins said his daughter was sorry for any offence caused by her actions.

He said: “She knows what she did was stupid and disrespectful and is very sorry for the offence that she has caused the Malaysian people.”

Mr Hawkins criticised an arrested Canadian — named in reports as 33-year-old Emil Kaminski — who is said to have circulated the photos and posted offensive comments on social media.

He accused the “halfwit Canadian guy” of “stirring up a media storm”.

Ms Hawkins, who recently graduated with a masters from Southampton University, was in the middle of a gap year travelling around south-east Asia which began in January.

She went to Malaysia at the start of May and later that month travelled to Borneo.

Police obtained a court order to detain her and three other westerners for four days while they are investigated for indecent behaviour, Sabah state police chief Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman said.

The three other defendants appearing in court today surrendered at a police station in Sabah on Tuesday evening, he said.

PA