In a major relief to the Britain's royal family a French court granted injunction against Closer magazine, preventing the weekly tabloid from publishing any more topless photos of Kate Middleton.
The Tribunal de Grande Instance in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre ruled on the petition seeking an injunction filed in a civil lawsuit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The jury consisting of three judges decided whether capturing on camera a semi-nude Middleton at her private estate accounted to the invasion of privacy as alleged by the royal couple.
The magazine published a series of 14 pictures of her topless, kicking off an outrage besides creating a storm at the palace.
Price William charged at the entertainment magazine, saying that taking pictures of Kate at a private residence was a "grotesque and totally unjustified invasion of their privacy." However, Closer ruled out the charges of trespassing.
The French magazine contended that since the pictures were shot from a street it doesn't amount to trespassing into a private area. Meanwhile, the magazine said the pictures are not for sale given that it doesn't own them.
The couple's lawyers argued that the photographer snapped the pictures when the couple was sharing "healthy and profoundly intimate" moments. They said that it was very much a private situation which had no merits to claim a front page.
Meanwhile, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge has moved a criminal complaint, accusing the editor of Closer magazine for allowing the concerned images to be published.
France is believed to have a very strong private law as far as Europe is concerned. Should the court find the accused editor guilty of the charges, then he would likely face imprisonment.
Closer magazine was the first to publish the images, followed by the Dublin edition of "Daily Star". On Monday, Italian magazine Chi carried a series of the embarrassing photos into a 26-page special titled "Court Scandal: The Queen is Nude".
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mondadori media group commands the editorial of both Closer and Chi.
William and Kate are presently on their last leg of the tour of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.
