Kate Middleton and Prince William welcome photos ban
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were dancing for joy yesterday after winning a landmark legal case to ban any further publication of intimate topless photographs.
The Royal couple swayed along to the sounds of the South Pacific – while a judge in Paris granted them an injunction blocking the French magazine Closer from republishing or selling the images.
St James’s Palace welcomed the decision.
A source said: “They always believed the law was broken and that they were entitled to their privacy.”
The court described the pictures as a “brutal display” of William and Kate’s private lives.
The magazine’s publisher, Mondatori Magazines France, was ordered to hand over all files within 24 hours, with an £8,000 fine for every day’s delay. It was also ordered to pay £1,600 in costs. It prevents Closer, which published the pictures in its latest edition, from reusing them in print or online.
It is also prevented from selling them to countries where they have not been published.
They always believed the law was broken and that they were entitled to their privacy
The penalty for sale of the photos was set at £80,000.
More good news for the royal couple was the hope that a criminal inquiry will lead to the unmasking of the paparazzo who took the pictures.
Escaping the legal wranglings, William and Kate threw themselves into the hustle and bustle of a welcome party on the tiny island nation of Tuvalu where groups tried to out sing or dance each other.
The Royal performance endeared the couple to their hosts, who embraced them as not only representatives of the Queen, their head of state, but also as true natives after their display in skirts made from pandanus leaves.