Eleanor Hawkins, 23, and Canadian siblings Danielle and Lindsey Petersen, and Dylan Snel from the Netherlands were sentenced to three days in jail and fined £1,000.

As they have already spent three days in custody leading up to the court appearance, they were set to be deported from the country immediately.    

Speaking from outside the court, Sky News Asia Correspondent Mark Stone said the four had been "very relieved" on hearing the verdict.

"They didn't speak to the media but their defence counsel gave us the thumbs-up first and was very pleased," he said.

Miss Hawkins, who was handed over to immigration officers at midnight, has said she is "pleased and happy" to be returning to the UK.

Her father, Tim, said the sentence was "appropriate and fair for the offence committed".

"I am grateful that the Malaysian authorities reached this decision," he said.

"Eleanor knows what she did was wrong and disrespectful and she is deeply sorry for any offence she has caused to the Malayan people."

Earlier in the morning, a handcuffed Miss Hawkins had arrived outside Kota Kinabalu Magistrates' Court in a car driven and guarded by men in black balaclavas.

Miss Hawkins, an aeronautical engineering graduate from Derby, was then read the charge that at 6.45am on 30 May she had committed an "obscene act in a public place to the annoyance of others". 

According to Stone, who was in court, Miss Hawkins "was very quick" to plead guilty. The other three tourists then also entered guilty pleas.

The court heard the group had been making a large amount of noise and some had urinated in a pond during the incident, offending tribal elders in the area of Mount Kinabalu.

The tourists were originally accused of telling their guides to "go to hell" when they were warned about what they were doing but the group of four denied this.

After a brief adjournment, the judge returned and said he would change the sequence of events for the record, removing accusations that the four had told their guides they were "stupid", to "shut up" and to "go to hell".

The judge instead recorded that the guides were "ignored by (the tourists)".

Prosecutor Jamil Ariffin said the jail sentence would serve as a "deterrent" to others .

He said: "Many Malaysians will have seen the photos and their actions have caused annoyance. We expect them to obey the law and respect our culture.

"Just because we extend our hospitality to them it doesn't give them the right to behave like this."

He said he was not seeking to connect the act with the earthquake but that "public sentiment" should be taken into consideration.

Masidi Majun, the tourism minister for Sabah province, told Sky News: "People have called me to express their disappointment. They claim it is lenient.

"My own feeling is it's not that much about the sentence. I think it's about the education that comes with the sentence.

"People need to be informed about the severity of the offence and while the sentence may seem little to some people, personally I feel that the message has been conveyed."

Defence counsel Ronny Cham told the court the tourists were "ignorant" of the cultural traditions and the sacred value of where they were.

He added: "They belong to a generation defined by their own peculiarities in the country from where they come from - more freedom and liberty to express their thoughts and ideas and openly express what they really felt and thought.

"They understand the hurt and injury to the feelings and emotion and sentiment of the people of Sabah for which they have very much regret."

Borneo's dominant indigenous tribe, the Dusun, claimed the Westerners' behaviour on the mountain, regarded by them as the resting place of the dead, upset their gods and caused a 5.9 earthquake days later which killed 18 people and left hundreds stranded.

The four who appeared in court are among 10 people who are alleged to have been involved in the nude stunt, and the other six are still being sought by authorities.