Oz backpacker denies faking ordeal

A BRITISH teenager who survived 12 nights in the Australian bush yesterday described himself as a “total idiot” and denied faking his ordeal.

Jamie Neale insisted he feared starving to death in the wilderness. Yesterday, he returned to the hiking trail where he became lost in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, to recount his ordeal for a television current affairs show which reportedly paid him a over €110,000.

The 19-year-old said he had underestimated the distance and difficulty of the Australian terrain.