A TT visitor who was fined £1,500 for crossing a closed road has accused the Manx authorities of ’discrimination, defamation and extortion’.

Polina Khoroshko, aka Polina Hapi, aged 35, had travelled nearly 10,000 miles from her home in Vanuatu in the South Pacific to watch the TT.

Shortly after she arrived, she was arrested and charged after crossing the closed road at Hillberry Green, Douglas, during an evening practice session. She later appeared in court and fined £1,500.

On Friday, she created a crowdfunding page to try to recoup the money, which she claimed had been ’extorted’ from her.

She urged followers to ’click here to support Isle of Man TT - discrimination, defamation and extortion’.

Miss Khoroshko later took the page down, after it had raised $425 Australian dollars, claiming people had been posting ’defamatory’ comments as part of a campaign to discredit her.

She posted: ’I have gone through one of the worst experiences of my life last week.’

She said she had always dreamed of visiting the TT, and had travelled more than 48 hours, on four fights, to reach the island.

Miss Khoroshko wrote: ’I was extremely tired from my trip but excited to be there and after checking in at my place of accommodation I was told that I should just go up the road and have a look at the bikes practising.

’I went up and had a look and seeing people on both sides of the road, I waited until the traffic stopped and crossed the road to look from the other side.

’At this point all hell broke loose around me. A guy in an orange vest ran up to me and said my holiday was over and I was going to jail. I was bewildered, speechless and extremely apologetic as I have clearly done something extremely bad.

’T’here were no signs or warnings at all anywhere about it being forbidden to cross the road and punishable by imprisonment or fines and I haven’t seen anything since as one would often see around the world in other places.’

She said her tiredness after her long journey could have affected her judgement. The court heard she had not been drinking.

Miss Khoroshko said she had never denied that what she did was dangerous; she was remorseful and had been fully co-operative with the police, the court and the marshals.

She claimed she was given the choice of jail or paying what she described as a ’highly unprecedented’ fine.

’I was made to pay under the threat of jail,’ she wrote. ’I strongly believe it to be a case of extreme discrimination, defamation and taking advantage of my vulnerable position as a single female traveler on the other side of the globe away from family, friends and any support.’

She added: ’Everyone told me that I simply should have known while obviously for any person coming from overseas the logical course of action is to wait till there is no traffic and cross then.

’On the Isle Of Man there is absolutely no effort made to inform the tourists arriving of this law and possible consequences.’

Others convicted of crossing closed roads have received much smaller sentences.

A man who lives on the TT course was fined £550 last week after pleading guilty to threatening behaviour and entering a closed road, while a Spanish TT visitor was fined just £250 after crossing the road at Crosby.