Topless Kate pictures spreading

LONDON - Agence France-Presse

Britain’s Prince William (L) and his wife Kate travel on a decorated truck through central Honiara, Solomon Islands. The royal couple is on a nine-day tour of the Far East. REUTERS photo

Britain’s royal family was struggling yesterday to prevent the spread of topless photos of Prince William’s wife Catherine, after the threat of legal action failed to intimidate Irish and Italian titles.

In a fresh blow to the royals a day after they began legal proceedings against French magazine Closer, the first to publish the pictures of Catherine sunbathing in her bikini bottoms, the images appeared again in Sept. 15 edition of Irish Daily Star.

“There can be no motivation for this action other than greed,” said a spokeswoman for Catherine and her husband, the second-in-line to the British throne. Italian gossip magazine Chi, meanwhile, is planning to devote 26 pages to the grainy paparazzi photographs in a special issue today, a move the palace said would heap “unjustifiable upset” on the former Kate Middleton.

Both Closer and Chi are published by the Mondadori Group, part of the media empire of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The prince is said to be furious over the images, which drew comparisons with press harassment of his mother Diana who died in a Paris car crash in 1997 while pursued by paparazzi. The prince is believed to blame the press photographers for his mother’s death.