THE royals want those responsible for taking the topless pics of the Duchess of Cambridge in court and preferably in jail, so you’d expect the paparazzi to be keeping a low profile.
However, a photographer who staked out Kate and Wills’ French chateau has emerged to defend her work.
Valerie Suau, whose last name the Mail Online has helpfully pointed out is pronounced “sewer”, said she took photos of Kate sunbathing but not naked.
The pictures published in the French edition of Closer magazine were taken with a long lens from the side of the road and about a kilometre from the chateau.
Suau said her pictures were published in a French regional paper, La Provence, and were “all decent”.
One of her colleagues said: “Valerie is concerned by the fuss. She says she was given free rein to do what she liked – taking pictures of the couple enjoying themselves in full view of the road.
“There were other people around, including walkers and cyclists, as well as staff at the chateau. The Duchess was sure to have known this, and perhaps should have been a bit more careful about displaying her body in such a prominent position.”
Ms Suau said there was no visible police presence around the chateau which will put pressure on the royal security team, already heavily criticised for allowing compromising pictures of Prince Harry to be taken in a Las Vegas hotel room.
Her revelations come as an Italian magazine gets set to publish more topless pictures of Kate.
Chi, which is owned by Mondadori, the same publishing group as the French edition of Closer, says it has 200 images of Kate sunbathing naked and plans to run 50 of them in a 26-page special edition out in Italy today.
Closer published five pages showing grainy images of Prince William and his wife, sparking legal threats from the royal family. The palace says lawyers will seek an injunction in a Paris court against Mondadori today.
Attempts to stop further publication of the pictures may be futile. The Irish Daily Star ran the pictures as the weekend, as did US gossip site gawker.com.
Prince William wants those responsible for the pictures jailed but the editor of Chi has said “not even a direct call from the Queen” would stop him from running them.
Alfonso Signorini said: “I am convinced by this scoop that Chi will be publishing on Monday because that is what we are talking about. These pictures are not offensive or in poor taste, they are not morbid and they do not damage the dignity of anyone.
“Instead the pictures that were published in Britain of Prince Harry were exactly that – if I didn’t recognise the journalistic value of what I had then if I did not publish them I would be better off in a market selling artichokes.”
Mondadori’s owner, Marina Berlusconi, the daughter of Italy’s former prime minister, also defended her company’s publication of the photos.
In a letter addressed to the newspaper, La Repubblica, she said: “Mondadori, of which I am chairwoman, is a publishing house that uses in the best way possible this freedom and this independence that shareholders have always recognised. On this occasion, as in others, Mondadori has confined itself to doing its job.”
