Judge awards £92k to couple for hurt caused by topless photos of Duchess
A FRENCH court yesterday awarded the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge £92,000 compensation for the hurt and upset caused by topless pictures of Kate.
While the amount is one of the highest in a privacy case in France, it is a fraction of the £1.4million the couple wanted.
Six defendants were in the dock as judges in Nanterre, the western suburb of Paris, ordered French Closer magazine to pay the majority of the £92,000 (100,000 euros) damages.
Its editor, 51-year-old Laurence Piea, and Ernest Mauria, 71, the director of the Mondadori group which publishes Closer, were fined £42,000 (45,000 euros) each.
The case dates back to September 2012 when William and Kate were pictured on holiday in Provence.
Long lens cameras caught Kate topless, while only wearing a skimpy pair of bikini bottoms.
The couple also want the equivalent of £42,000 (50,000 euros) from the local newspaper La Provence, which first published the pictures. Agency photographers Cyril Moreau, 32, and Dominique Jacovides, 59, and Valerie Suau, 53, of La Provence, were accused of invading privacy and complicity.
The sixth defendant was Marc Auburtin, the then 57-year-old publishing director of La Provence.
Moreau and Jacovides were fined £4500 (5,000 euros). Suau, the photographer from La Provence, was fined £900 (1,000 euros), while Auburtin, the paper’s publishing director, was told to pay £2750 (3000 euros) directly to the royal couple.