25 Aug 2012

Pictures of naked Harry published in UK

5:46 am on 25 August 2012

A tabloid newspaper has become the first in Britain to publish pictures of Prince Harry in a naked embrace with a woman in a hotel room in Las Vegas.

The Sun says it is not making a moral judgement, despite requests from the Royal family for the pictures not to be published.

Managing editor David Dinsmore said it would have been "perverse" not to publish the photos which were in the public domain in every country in the world".

The Sun has become the first British newspaper to publish the images.

The Press Complaints Commission said it had received 850 complaints about the use of the images from the public.

The PCC said nearly all of the complaints related to invasion of privacy and are to be investigated in due course.

The BBC reports the pictures emerged from a private weekend the prince spent with friends. The two photos of the prince and a naked woman in a hotel room are believed to have been taken on a camera phone last Friday.

They first appeared on TMZ, a US website, earlier this week. TMZ reported that he had been in a group playing "strip billiards".

The Daily Mirror and the Independent said they did not publish the photos because they considered that they breached the prince's privacy.