Updated 16.43
THE IRISH DAILY Star has drawn the attention of St. James’s Palace after the paper published the controversial topless pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.
A spokesperson for the palace has said that “there can be no motivation for this action other than greed”.
The Irish Daily Star is a joint venture involving Independent News and Media and Richard Desmond’s Northern and Shell.
According to Channel 4′s Faisal Islam Irish Daily Star Editor Michael O’Kane said that Desmond wasn’t told about the decision to publish the images.
Islam has also tweeted a statement from Northern and Shell in which it says it “abhor[s]” the decision to publish, and that Northern and Shell has no editorial control over the Irish Daily Star. Northern and Shell is also consulting with lawyers “over what we believe to be a serious breach of [the Irish Daily Star's] contract”.
O’Kane told the BBC meanwhile that the images are causing upset only in the UK, and not in the rest of Europe. He also said that the pictures were ‘very tasteful’ and that the Duchess of Cambridge is afforded the same treatment as the likes of Rihanna or Lady Gaga.
She’s not the future queen of Ireland so really the only place this is causing fury seems to be in the UK, and they are very very tasteful pictures.
He also said British newspapers had got themselves into a “total muddle” since the beginning of an inquiry into press ethics, which was set up in the wake of the country’s phone-hacking scandal.
The editor believes newspapers are now scared that harsh press regulations will be introduced if they antagonise inquiry chairman Brian Leveson.
He insisted that his paper was within its rights to publish the photographs as they had been taken from a public highway.
Yesterday legal action was launched against Closer, the French gossip magazine which first published the images of Prince William and his wife on holiday in the south of France.
-With reporting by AFP
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