KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 ― The antics of a British national who has been blamed for causing last week’s earthquake in Sabah when she and a group of other tourists photographed themselves in the buff atop Mount Kinabalu, has earned sensational headlines in the UK.
In UK daily The Sun, the eye-catching headline, “Your boobs have angered mountain gods”, was splattered across its front-page today, against the backdrop of a photograph showing several tourists allegedly in the act of stripping naked on Mount Kinabalu’s peak.
It also carried the words “Brit girl jailed after strip ‘causes killer earthquake’”, along with a photograph of Eleanor Hawkins, the 24-year-old British woman who was nabbed by police as she attempted to leave the state.
The Sun also claimed to have an “exclusive” story on the episode, with an excerpt claiming that the British national had said “I’m scared” and had apologised for what the paper called a “prank”.
In the same excerpt, it said the backpacker was in jail and was “accused of angering the gods and causing a deadly earthquake”.
Another paper Daily Star used the headline “Naked Brit girl caused killer quake”, while The Daily Mirror used the headline “Nude student faces jail for ‘causing deadly quake’” along with the line “Locals in Borneo say gods on sacred mountain were angered by photo prank”.
Yesterday, Sabah police confirmed Hawkins was nabbed at Sabah’s Tawau airport while attempting to leave the state, while three others surrendered themselves — Canadian siblings Lindsey Petersen, 23 and Danielle Petersen, 22 and Dutch national Dylan Snel,23 — to the police.
The four are currently under a four-day remand at Sabah capital Kota Kinabalu’s police station, where they are being detained to aid in a police probe.
The police are probing the four under Section 294(a) of the Penal code for public indecency, an offence which is punishable by a maximum three months’ jail term or fine or both.
They have yet to be charged, but their lawyer Ronny Cham was reported in The Guardian as saying their likely defence would be that Mount Kinabalu’s summit should not be defined as a public place where annoyance could be caused to the public.
According to UK dailies The Guardian and The Telegraph, Hawkins’ father Tim Hawkins is hoping that Malaysian authorities will only fine his daughter and sentence her “to some kind of relief work” and require a public apology.
“She’s going to plead guilty and then it is up to a plea bargain from her lawyer. We have faith in the Malaysian justice system, but I have a terrible feeling they might throw the book at her, make an example of them,” he was quoted saying by TheTelegraph.
According to a police report by Sabah Parks staff, 10 tourists were alleged to have stripped and posed naked for photos on Mount Kinabalu’s peak on May 30 and reportedly rebuffed their local guide who tried to stop them, telling him to “go to hell”.
The act has angered natives who believe that the mountain is sacred and carries the spirit of their ancestors, with deputy chief minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan blaming a magnitude 5.9 earthquake on June 5 that killed 18 people on the disrespectful act.
Source: www.themalaymailonline.com
