Meghan Markle sucked into Kate Middleton’s topless photos legal saga

A French magazine forced to pay £92,000 in damages for publishing topless photographs of Kate Middleton is trying to appeal the ruling by using provocative images of Meghan Markle.

Paris-based publication Closer was ordered to pay compensation to the Duchess of Cambridge last year after losing a long-running legal battle.

So what is it all about?

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Why was Kate Middleton awarded the payout?

In 2012, France’s Closer magazine published photographs of the Duchess sunbathing topless. She was inside the grounds of a luxury holiday chateau during a private holiday with Prince William in the south of France, and the pictures were taken by paparazzi using long lenses.

Following five years of legal proceedings, a French court last year ruled that her privacy had been breached and awarded her €100,000 (£92,000) in compensation - a substantial amount but much less than the £1.5m asked for by the Royals.

Why is the magazine appealing the ruling?

Lawyers for Closer reportedly say that the ruling itself was consistent with the law but that the damages were “exaggerated for a simple matter of privacy”.

“Token sums of less than £100 are often awarded for breaches of privacy in France,” notes The Daily Telegraph.

The magazine’s legal team will argue in the Versailles Appeals Court that the amount should be drastically reduced.

What has Meghan Markle got to do with it?

Lawyers will argue that it is “hypocritical” to award such a large payout when other members of the Royal Family “are happy with sexy photos”, reports the Telegraph.

“Closer’s legal team are expected to produce in court footage of the Duchess of Sussex removing items of clothing before seductively posing in shorts in a video called Grilling Never Looked So Hot, to make the case that female members of the Royal Family have willingly posed for revealing images,” says the newspaper.

The footage was shot in 2013, before Markle had met Prince Harry, for an advert for Men’s Health magazine.