Tourist fined for trespassing at Buckingham Palace
An American tourist has been fined £200 after admitting trespassing in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
Joseph Huang Kang jumped over the fence into the Royal Mews, which houses the royal family's horses, on the afternoon of December 10 last year.
Prosecutor Sadara Weerasena told Westminster Magistrates' Court the 24-year-old ignored staff who challenged him and ran off before being found in the toilets.
Kang, from Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trespassing on a protected site.
His lawyer, Lucy Watson, said that at the time of the offence he was suffering from an "unspecified psychosis disorder".
"No harm was caused, he did not enter the palace, he had no intention to enter the palace, there was no damage caused," she said.
Ms Watson told the court that US national Kang had arrived in the UK on December 1, staying in Heathrow Airport for days because his debit cards had been cancelled.
His parents booked him a flight home but Kang began suffering from psychosis before he boarded the plane, she said.
"On December 10 he found himself homeless," said Ms Watson.
"The reason he went into the grounds was to seek medical help. He wanted to get arrested."
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring fined Kang, who is currently staying in a central London hotel, £200, and ordered him to pay another £119 in costs.
"The sooner your parents pay it and you can go, the less they will have to pay for a London hotel, which is obviously expensive," he said.
"What you were trying to do was looking for some help. You found yourself in a very difficult situation in a foreign country, with no funds, nowhere to live and all your property being lost.
"I also accept you had no nefarious intent while you were there.
"You weren't in possession of anything and you weren't seeking to get into the palace."
On Tuesday, Cameron Kalani, 44, was handed a 24-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, at the same court after pleading guilty to trespassing on a protected site, possession of a bladed article and possession of a wrap of cocaine.
He scaled the fence into the Royal Mews in the early hours of May 10 last year and was caught with an 8in (20cm) kitchen knife and cocaine in his bag when he was arrested after climbing back into Buckingham Palace Road.
Kalani said he had travelled to London from his home in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, while in a state of psychosis in a bid "to be arrested".
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