I'M ROYALTY: Kate Middleton topless photographer to be arrested

THE photographer suspected of taking topless pictures of Kate Middleton is to be arrested. Mail Online reports that French police have the name of the paparazzo whose intimate photos of the Duchess were published by French Closer magazine last month and then around the world. "A name has been offered," said a source close to the investigation. "The photographer is expected to be held for questioned imminently." Hundreds of pictures of Kate sunbathing topless and without her bikini bottoms were taken while she and Prince were on holiday at a private house in Provence. The royal couple were devastated by the photos - said to be taken from a kilometre away with a long lens - and Prince William demanded that the photographer responsible be jailed. His lawyers won an injunction preventing Closer from publishing further paparazzi shots of Kate as French courts ordered a criminal investigation into charges that Closer and a photographer breached the privacy of the royal couple. Under French law, anyone found guilty of breaching privacy could be jailed for up to one year and heavily fined. French judges described the pictures as a "brutal display". "These snapshots which showed the intimacy of a couple, partially naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred metres from a public road, and being able to legitimately assume that they are protected from passersby, are by nature particularly intrusive," the ruling decreed. "(They) were thus subjected to this brutal display the moment the cover appeared." Closer's editor, Laurence Pieau, defended the decision to publish the photos, saying she did not think they were shocking or degrading. "I can imagine that these photographs displease them, but once again these photographs are not degrading, they are joyous - they are in love, she is very pretty." She said she hired a freelance photographer to watch the couple but has refused to name the person. Last month, a photographer admitted she had staked out Kate and Wills' French chateau but denied she had taken the topless shots. Valerie Suau said her pictures were published in a French regional paper, La Provence, and were "all decent". One of her colleagues said: "Valerie is concerned by the fuss. She says she was given free rein to do what she liked - taking pictures of the couple enjoying themselves in full view of the road. "There were other people around, including walkers and cyclists, as well as staff at the chateau. The Duchess was sure to have known this, and perhaps should have been a bit more careful about displaying her body in such a prominent position." Ms Suau said there was no visible police presence around the chateau.