Naomi Coleman flies back the Britain on a ticket paid for by the government as it emerges a row with a taxi driver sparked arrest
Naomi Coleman was arrested in Colombo minutes into her holiday Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachi/ Getty
Sri Lankan authorities have apologised to a British nurse jailed over her Buddha tattoo and paid for her flight back to the UK.
As she flew home it emerged that Naomi Coleman, 37, was arrested minutes into her holiday as she rowed with taxi driver over an extortionate fare and he took her to police and pointed out her tattoo.
She spent a night in prison, where she feared she would be raped, before being transferred to a detention centre in the suburbs of the capital Colombo.
It is understood that the British High Commission is to lodge a complaint with Sri Lanka's External Affairs Ministry over her treatment.
Miss Coleman, who is expected to land in Heathrow on Thursday night, had been planning to travel on to the Maldives but was forced to cut her dream holiday short because no airline would carry her without security clearance.
"I have been treated very badly. I am exhausted," she said. "I just want to go home.”
Sri Lanka's government-run Tourism Promotion Bureau paid for her ticket and an official apologised to her personally for the “unfortunate incident”.
Miss Coleman, a mental health nurse from Coventry, has revealed that when she landed in Colombo on Monday she tried to get a taxi from the airport to her hotel in the nearby town of Negombo.
The driver demanded an “extortionate” Rs 15,000, around £68, when the fare should not have exceeded a couple of thousand rupees and the pair got into an argument.
As a result, the driver took her to nearby police and pointed to the Buddha tattoo on her upper right arm.
She was dragged before a magistrate and imprisoned on the grounds that she tried to outrage public feelings.
Since then she has been through “hell”, Miss Coleman said, fearing she would be raped by a male prison guard who made a lewd gestures and was forced to bribe a female guard to avoid a “thorough” body search.
"I did not feel safe,” she said.
Authorities insist they will investigate her claim if a formal complaint was made.
Sri Lanka is highly sensitive to perceived insults to Buddhism, but Miss Coleman says that she is a devout Buddhist and the tattoo was out of respect and conviction.
Another British tourist from entering the island in March last year for showing "disrespect" to Buddhism by having a Buddha tattooed on his arm.
In August 2012 three French tourists were sentenced to six months in jail, which was suspended for five years, for kissing a Buddha statue in what the authorities considered a sign of disrespect.
Sri Lanka prevented US rap star Akon from visiting in 2010 over one of his music videos which featured scantily clad women dancing in front of a Buddha statue.
The incident has prompted the foreign office to update their advice for those wishing to visit the area.
They warn: "The mistreatment of Buddhist images and artefacts is a serious offence and tourists have been convicted for this. British nationals have been refused entry to Sri Lanka or faced deportation for having visible tattoos of Buddha. Don’t pose for photographs by standing in front of a statue of Buddha.”
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