The father of an English girl in arrested in Malaysia after a nude mountain-top stunt has blamed a ‘half-wit’ Canadian for her predicament. Timothy Hawkins said his daughter Eleanor was “very scared, very upset” after the man used social media to post images of her antics.
The Daily Express reports Miss Hawkins, 23, appeared in court on Wednesday with three co-accused Westerners facing charges of indecent behaviour on Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu peak. A killer earthquake which hit the peak just days later has been blamed on the foreigners’ “disrespect to the sacred mountain”.
Her engineer father accused 33-year-old Canadian Emil Kaminski of stirring up trouble by distributing pictures of their antics on the web. He added: “What I will say is the guy stirring up a media storm – the halfwit Canadian guy – is not doing anyone any favours.”
Mr Kaminski appears to have used his Facebook page to dismiss criticisms of the group’s behaviour.
He has also made a 12-minute YouTube video of himself, entitled Trolling Malaysia, in which he brushed aside criticisms of himself and the photos, saying: “Jesus Christ, people, it is just a f****** mountain.”
Mr Hawkins continued: “She’s been arrested. It’s not a situation she’s been in before so it’s not good.
“We managed to speak to Ellie yesterday morning and she is obviously quite scared and upset.
“She knows what she did was stupid and disrespectful and is very sorry for the offence she has caused the Malaysian people.”
He added: “We hope that the Malaysian authorities deal with the misdemeanour and do not link it to the unfortunate tragic events that occurred the following week.”
The four accused are now in the central jail in Kepayan, in the city of Kota Kinabalu. Ronny Cham, the lawyer for the tourists, told the BBC that he had asked that they be be held apart from other detainees for their safety.
They have been remanded in custody until Saturday.