ABSTRACT
Prince William and his wife Catherine launched a privacy action in the French courts against Laurence Pieau, editor of the French edition of Closer , 2 and its Italian-based publisher, Mondadori. 3 The Irish Daily Star also published the topless photographs of the Princess. British media tycoon Richard Desmond, who part-owns the Irish tabloid, called the editor’s decision to publish the topless photos ‘abhorrent’, threatening to close the paper down. Desmond, owner of the Northern and Shell group and the Irish-based Independent News and Media, argued that their Royal Highnesses had every expectation of privacy when they had rented Chateau D’Autet, the private chateau in Provence, owned by Viscount Linley, the Queen’s nephew. 4 Editor of the Irish Daily Star , Michael O’Kane, defended his decision to publish the topless photos of the Duchess, by saying: ‘I’m absolutely stunned that Kate Middleton would think, her being the most photographed woman in the world, I think one of the most famous people in the world, that she would expose herself
topless, outdoors, and not expect the world to take notice of it’, speaking in an interview with an Irish radio station. 5
The French court subsequently ordered Closer magazine to hand over the original photographs. On 19 September 2012 the editor of Danish gossip magazine Se og Hør (‘See and Hear’) said that he was ‘incredibly proud that we have rights to the pictures of Britain’s future Queen’, featuring a 16-page supplement in spite of the injunction granted in the French courts. 6 The incident was reminiscent of the worst excesses of the media some 15 years earlier when Prince William’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash, while being chased by paparazzi through Paris. 7
Former editor of the News of the World , Phil Hall, argued that the Duchess may have been a little ‘naïve’ and her advisers negligent in allowing the (‘topless Kate’) situation to arise, particularly at the point where the couple were about to visit a Muslim country, Malaysia. Defence lawyers for the French and Italian press outlets argued that the Duchess of Cambridge is in a privileged position which comes with responsibility and that the public interest test had been established as per the von Hannover (No 1) ruling in the Strasbourg Court. Therefore, it did not matter whether the photos were taken in private or not.
