Snaps of Kate and Pippa Middleton, their mother Carole, and Prince William on yacht off Ibiza in 2006 appeared in tabloids
The Middleton family are expected to complain to the Press Complaints Commission after five-year-old photographs of Kate and Pippa Middleton and their mother, Carole, in bikinis while on holiday with Prince William on board a yacht off Ibiza were published in two Sunday newspapers.
The pictures, in the Mail on Sunday and News of the World, show the Middletons swimming, diving and sunbathing. The latter paper also shows Pippa Middleton removing her bikini top with the headlines "Oh buoy it's Pippa" and "So hot she had to be hosed down." Further photographs were displayed for a time on the newspaper's website but later taken down.
Although the photographs were taken in 2006, the Mail on Sunday described them as "never-before-seen pictures". The News of the World claimed its pictures from the same set were exclusive, showing the then 22-year-old Pippa Middleton's "now world-famous rear admirable, afloat here in never-before-seen detail". The pictures were sourced from the London-based Big Pictures Agency.
Sources at the PCC indicated that a complaint from the family is expected over the use of the pictures on the grounds that they breach the editors' code of practice by invading the Middletons' reasonable expectation of privacy.
Publication of the photographs follows pictures in three tabloids last Friday showing the new Duchess of Cambridge wheeling a shopping trolley at the local Waitrose supermarket on Anglesey, where she and Prince William live in RAF quarters.
Separate photographers received bylines in each paper, indicating she may have been confronted by a group. Newspapers have been warned not to identify the couple's home for security reasons.
A story about Prince William's role in rescuing 70-year-old retired judge Nicholas Barnett, who suffered a heart attack while walking on Snowdon at the weekend, has also been publicised.