Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's publication house Chi has striken
again on UK's Royal Couple's privacy and has published the pictures of The Duchess of Cambridge on the beach in a bikini and clearl pregnant featured.
St James's Palace said that the images, taken on the exclusive Caribbean island of Mustique where Kate is holidaying with her husband and close family, were a 'clear breach' of privacy.
'We are disappointed that photographs of the Duke and Duchess on a private holiday look likely to be published overseas', a spokesman added.
The pictures show the 31-year-old Duchess strolling on the private beach with William. In one shot he is seen with an arm protectively around her back. Both look relaxed and Catherine is seen smiling happily.
It is understood that the magazine has also run pictures of Kate's sister Pippa who is on
holiday with the Royal couple and the rest of the Middleton family including her parents Carole and Michael.
Chi is infamous for running salacious paparazzi shots that few other publications will touch, including a number of Royal 'exclusives' that have caused international outrage.
In 2006, the publication used images of the dying Diana, taken by one of the photographers who had pursued her before the fatal crash in 1997.
It has already incited the wrath of the late Princess of Wales's son and his wife after running the 26-page supplement of Kate sunbathing semi-naked at Chateau D'Autet in southern France last autumn.
Chi is published by Italian media giant Mondadori and has a circulation of 218,262.
Mondadori is controlled by Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi's family holding company.
The images were first published in French Closer magazine and then in numerous other countries, including Italy and Ireland.
The words accompanying the images in Closer magazine said: ‘Kate even smoked a cigarette between getting out of the airport and into the car which was driving them to their little paradise.’
William called for the photographer responsible to be jailed and in September the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge won a landmark legal case yesterday blocking further publication of topless photographs of Kate.
Judges banned French magazine Closer from selling or republishing the
pictures and said its decision to use them had been a ‘brutal’ invasion of the couple’s privacy.
However, the injunction was branded a ‘hollow victory’ because more than 500,000 copies of the magazine had already been sold, about 100,000 more then normal.
Closer was also barred from selling the photographs to anyone else in the world, but the ruling only covers the photos as owned by Closer - not the actual pictures themselves - which means an owner of the photos could in theory sell them on to another publication.
Later that month photographs of Kate Middleton changing her bikini bottom were published in a Danish magazine, reigniting the privacy scandal surrounding the Royal couple.
Celebrity magazine Se Og Hor (See And Hear) went further than any other publication and printed a 16-page special of photographs, including three of the Duchess of Cambridge changing her bikini bottoms – taken from the front.
However, the latest set of photographs which are understood to have been taken last week, may prove even more contentious.
Kate and William are on a private holiday on an exclusive island which prides itself on offering celebrities the perfect retreat. Paparazzi are banned.
And the sensitivity surrounding Kate's difficult pregnancy will provoke great anger in Royal circles. It is likely to be the couple's last holiday before she has her first child, which is due in July.
She was forced to reveal she was expecting a baby in December when she was not even eight weeks pregnant after being rushed to hospital with an acute form of morning sickness.
Diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, she spent three nights at King Edward VII where she was put on a drip.
Her stay at the private facility, the favoured hospital of the Royal family, took a deeply tragic turn after two Australians DJs duped staff with a hoax call in which they pretended to be the Queen and the Prince of Wales.
Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who put the call through to Kate's ward, was later found hanged in her quarters in Marylebone, central London.
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