A lawyer for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge has urged a French court today to ban the republication or resale of topless photos of the Kate Middleton, saying they were from a “highly intimate moment,” according to reports
Speaking at a court hearing in Paris, lawyer Aurelien Hamelle said the photographs of Catherine sunbathing on the balcony of a French chateau should never have been in the public domain.
The photographs, published in French gossip magazine Closer, were taken “in a highly intimate moment during a scene of married life and have no place on the cover of a magazine,” Hamelle told the court, according to London’s Daily Telegraph.
Hamelle urged the judge to grant an injunction against all republishing of the photographs in print and in digital form and to ban their resale.
The newspaper also said the prosecutor’s office in Nanterre had also received a criminal complaint from the royal couple. According to the report they want criminal charges brought against both Closer and the photographer.
The Duke and Duchess believe they have a strong case for their civil action for breach of privacy after the photographer took long lens shots of the Duchess sunbathing while the couple were staying in a private chateau in Provence two weeks ago.
The court adjourned the decision until tomorrow.
The couple also believe the photographer who took the pictures has committed a criminal act under French law and want a criminal investigation. The photographer has been lying low since the scandal erupted.
A St James’s Palace source told The Telegraph: “Papers for the criminal complaint have been filed this morning in France. It is now up to the French prosecutors to decide whether to investigate and pursue the complaint.”
The Duke and Duchess have been spending the seventh day of the tour of the Far East, visiting the Solomon Islands.
A spokesman for the couple told the Telegraph: “They are focusing on the tour, though they are being kept aware of developments and are directing a lot of the developments themselves.”
With AP