The British backpacker who was the subject of a costly search-and-rescue effort during his 12-day disappearance in the Australian Bush has signed up with a celebrity agent to sell his story to the highest bidder.

News of the proposed deal, 24 hours after Jamie Neale walked out of the wilderness of the Blue Mountains, has outraged people in Katoomba, the town from which he went missing.

Sean Anderson, a Sydney-based agent, confirmed that he had signed Mr Neale and his father, Richard Cass, to his agency to sell their story to British and Australian media organisations. Mr Anderson refused to discuss any offers he had received. However, another Australian talent agent, Max Markson, said that he had been approached by British media organisations willing to offer Mr Neale Aus$50,000 (£24,000) for his story.

As the word spread that Mr Neale would receive money for his remarkable tale, many local people said that he should reimburse the volunteer rescue organisation that searched for him.

Mr Neale, 19, from Muswell Hill, North London, was greeted with joy and disbelief on Wednesday when, just as his family had given him up for dead, he stumbled out of the Bush dehydrated and exhausted, 13 miles from the Blue Mountains tourist town.

He had eaten seeds and weeds to survive and had scratches to his face and upper body, but did not suffer from hypothermia despite freezing overnight temperatures.

Mr Cass said that he was upset that people had questioned his son’s account and had accused him of staging a hoax for financial gain.

“He’s aware that people are disbelieving,” Mr Cass told an Australian newspaper. “I know my boy. I know he’s been out there for that period of time. He’s been through a God-awful experience and for him to then not be believed, that will obviously be quite psychologically damaging.”

Tony McWhirter, the commander of Blue Mountains police, said that Mr Neale had gone from “relief to incrimination” but that there were no grounds not to believe his story. “It’s much easier to believe the fact that somebody passed away or perished . . . That’s expected. The incredible is harder to believe,” he said.

Although his father has given many interviews, Mr Neale has remained silent. He released a one-line statement from his hospital bed that said: “I am grateful to everybody for their help and support.”

Few details have emerged of how he survived for so long in unforgiving bush, in temperatures that plunged to freezing. According to his father, however, he ate an enormous pizza meal the night before he disappeared.

Mr Anderson represents Australian television and modelling personalities as well as the “Beaconsfield Miners”, Todd Russell and Brant Webb, who survived for 14 days trapped more than half a mile underground in a collapsed mine in Tasmania in 2006. He negotiated an Aus$2.6 million deal for the miners’ story but Mr Neale’s worth is expected to be much less.

Mr Markson said Mr Neale’s story could still prove lucrative, with print and television deals and further endorsements. “It’s such a good survival story. He could go on to do some speaking engagements. He should be doing some educating, talking to kids at school to help them learn about survival skills. There could even be a diet book — Jamie’s 12-day diet.”

The week-long search is estimated to have cost the Australian taxpayer more than Aus $100,000.

Mr Cass continually asked for media to make donations to the local search-and-rescue crews who helped to look for his son, and said: “I appreciate the millions spent on this search.”

In Katoomba many locals were livid. One, Marty Delaney, said: “If I was overseas and got caught through my own stupidity and the government of that country had to pay for me to be rescued, I would reimburse them.”

Mr Neale is expected to be released from hospital today.

How to survive disaster and profit from the book deal

— Joe Simpson wrote Touching the Void about his near-fatal climb with Simon Yates in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. The book was made into a documentary of the same title in 2003

— Dougal Robertson wrote Survive the Savage Sea, the story of his family’s sailing trip that ended in disaster when their schooner Lucette was sunk by killer whales in the Pacific. It was turned into a film of the same name in 1991, and his son rewrote the story in The Last Voyage of the Lucette. Robertson also wrote Sea Survival: A Manual

— Colby Coombs, hit by an avalanche on Mount Foraker in Alaska in 2003, found himself hanging on a rope with broken bones and a companion dead beside him. He hiked for four days to safety and wrote Out of the Void: Coombs vs the Avalanche

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