Eleanor Hawkins was detained at Tawau airport as she was flying out from the island. Photo / Instagram
Eleanor Hawkins was detained at Tawau airport as she was flying out from the island. Photo / Instagram
The British woman jailed for stripping on a sacred Malaysian mountain said yesterday (Sunday) that she had been foolish and was truly sorry for her actions.
Eleanor Hawkins was reunited with her parents following an overnight flight back to Britain from the Far East, where she had offended Malaysians with her display of nudity.
The 23-year-old aeronautical engineering graduate said she was "relieved and happy" to be home as she made her first statement on the incident.
Speaking outside her parents' house in Draycott, Derbyshire, and looking exhausted, she said: "I know my behaviour was foolish, and I know how much offence we all caused to the local people of Sabah. For that, I am truly sorry."
Eleanor Hawkins was detained at Tawau airport as she was flying out from the island. Photo / Instagram
Miss Hawkins's backpacking trip through South East Asia ended in jail after she and nine other Westerners incurred the anger of Malaysians by stripping on top of Mt Kinabalu, a sacred peak to the local people.
The former public-school head girl and her companions posed for naked photographs near the summit of the 13,435ft mountain on May 30, despite their guide trying to stop them. Locals were enraged when the pictures emerged. Some blamed the prank for an earthquake six days later on the mountain, which killed 18 people, saying the tourists had offended spirits that guard the hilltop.
Miss Hawkins, an only child, known to her family as Ellie, was arrested and charged with indecency, earning her a three-day prison sentence and a 5,000 ringgit (pounds 850) fine.
Her mother, Ruth, said: "We are really relieved to have Ellie home. It has been a very traumatic time for her. Ellie knows what she did was disrespectful. She is sorry for any offence caused to the people of Sabah.
"Ellie has been appropriately and fairly judged by the Malaysian authorities and has served her sentence in full. The case is now closed."
Miss Hawkins had finished her master's degree and set off to travel solo around South East Asia in January. She had been planning to travel on from Malaysia to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam, before the incident cut her trip short. She was ushered out of Malaysia by British officials before she could face trial in a separate, native court.
The group of people who undressed and posed for photos on Mount Kinabalu. Photo / via YouTube / Emil Kaminski
In Borneo there is still anger that the tourists have been treated leniently and should have faced trial in the native court. "I'm so angry they have been allowed to leave," said Nor Azlan, the mountain guide who led the tourists. "They should be sent back to Malaysia."
Daikin Anam, the 32-year-old park ranger who made the initial police complaint, agreed, saying he was disappointed they had been freed. "It's not right," he said. "They got off too lightly."
Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said he hoped government advice that travellers and tourists should heed local cultural sensitivities was getting through. "It's important that when people go abroad they are sensitive to the environment that they are in, they are sensitive to local cultural norms and aware that things that might seem like rather minor misdemeanours here can cause great offence elsewhere.
"We see this ourselves. We have things that we are very sensitive about - war memorials, for example - that may not seem particularly significant to people who don't understand the history and the culture behind them.
"Similarly, when we go abroad we should be sensitive to local culture."
