A French court awarded Kate Middleton with £91,700, or $119,000 in punitive damages for the topless photos that were published in a French magazine five years ago.
The photos were taken in 2012 while Middleton was on vacation with Prince William at a chateau owned by a member of the royal family in Provence France. On Tuesday, a court in Nanterre, France ordered Closer magazine to pay the damages after determining that they were taken in violation of the couple’s privacy, E! News reports.
(Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
All six defendants in the trial were convicted of charges related to the publication of the intrusive images, although the amount didn’t come close to what the royal couple sought. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge originally sought £1.3 million (about $1.68 million) in punitive damages from Closer and another £42,000 from French newspaper La Provence which published non-nude photos of Middleton.
“Their Royal Highnesses have been hugely saddened to learn that a French publication and a photographer have invaded their privacy in such a grotesque and totally unjustifiable manner,” St. James Palace said at the time of the scandal.
“The incident is reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi during the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, and all the more upsetting to the Duke and Duchess for being so. Their Royal Highnesses had every expectation of privacy in the remote house. It is unthinkable that anyone should take such photographs, let alone publish them.”
(Photo credit: PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)
The ruling from the court comes just days after the Duke and Duchess announced that Middleton is pregnant with their third child.