All round
French magazine fined for Topless Photos of Kate Middleton
Two gossip magazine executives were fined the maximum amount by a French court on Tuesday for publishing topless images of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.
Laurence Pieau, the editor of Closer Magazine, and Ernesto Mauri, the magazine’s owner, were deemed to have violated Middleton’s privacy when they published the photographs, according to a landmark judgement.
Kate and her husband, Prince William, were each set to receive 50,000 euros ($59,500) in damages from two executives of a French gossip magazine and two photographers working for a picture agency.
Closer magazine’s editor and owner were were fined 45,000 euros ($53,000) each, the highest sum allowed under French privacy law.
The figure is far less than the royal couple’s stated demand for $2.2 million in damages.
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The pictures of Middleton and her husband, Prince William, were taken while the royal couple was on vacation in southeastern France, and they showed the couple lounging on a balcony.
The couple had filed a complaint after the images were published in gossip magazine Closer and a regional newspaper in 2012, a year after their wedding. They did not attend the verdict hearing.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s office said in a statement that they were happy with the decision.
A Kensington Palace representative said, “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are pleased that the court has found in their favour and the matter is now closed. This incident was a serious breach of privacy, and Their Royal Highnesses felt it essential to pursue all legal remedies. They wished to make the point strongly that this kind of unjustified intrusion should not happen.”
In a statement read by William and Kate’s French lawyer at a court hearing in Nanterre, France, in May, William described the invasion of privacy by French paparazzi as “particularly shocking” and “all the more painful” in light of the harassment of his mother, the late Princess Diana, by other paparazzi.
Diana died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident on Paris’ Pont d’Alma in August 1997. While leaving the Ritz Hotel with Dodi al Fayed, the late princess’s automobile crashed while being followed by paparazzi at high speeds.
The French court decision came after the royal couple, who have piqued the interest of many in the United Kingdom and throughout the world, announced on Monday that they are expecting their third child.
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