The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge faced fresh anguish over privacy last night after an Italian magazine published photographs of pregnant Kate in a bikini. Palace sources condemned the ‘violating’ pictures, which show the couple walking along a beach while holidaying on the secluded Caribbean island of Mustique.

 

Gossip magazine Chi, which caused outrage when it published a photograph of Princess Diana as she lay dying, splashed pictures of the duchess and her growing baby bump across its front page.

 

Kate, who is about four months pregnant, is wearing a bright blue halter-neck bikini with her slightly rounded stomach clearly visible. Her arm is draped over her husband’s shoulders while William, who is wearing blue baggy shorts and sunglasses, has an arm protectively around his wife’s back.

 

The headline on the magazine, which goes on sale today, reads ‘Kate and William – honeymoon for three’.

 

Last night, royal sources said William, in particular, still felt ‘very bruised’ about the fresh breach of privacy so soon after the same magazine splashed topless photographs of Kate across its front page beneath the headline ‘the queen is naked’.

 

The source said William felt very strongly at the time that he had somehow ‘failed’ to protect his wife. The intimate photographs are thought to have been taken from a boat using a long lens camera. The celebrity magazine, which is owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, boasts: ‘The extraordinary images of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their dream holiday in the Caribbean.

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The future mum, now four months pregnant, wore a tiny bikini which showed off her visible bump.’ The photographs are believed to have been offered to several other magazines around the world and could fetch up to £250,000.

 

Yesterday a spokesman for St James’s Palace said: ‘We are disappointed that photographs of the Duke and Duchess on a private holiday look likely to be published overseas.

‘This is a clear breach of the couple’s right to privacy.’

 

A palace source said: ‘It’s violating’. The duke and duchess, who are expecting their first child in July, flew to a £19,000-a-week luxury villa on the island of Mustique last week.

 

In the wake of the Princess Diana's 1997 death, when the car she was in crashed while being pursued by papparazi, the Royal Family has asked the media to limit its intrusion into the private lives of the aristocracy.

 

A Royal spokesman once said: 'Members of the Royal Family feel they have a right to privacy when they are going about everyday, private activities.

 

'They recognise there is a public interest in them and what they do, but they do not think this extends to photographing the private activities of them and their friends.' The UK media has for the most part observed this request. When the topless pictures of The Duchess surfaced, no UK newspapers or magazines published the images, even though they had spread all over the internet.

 

Similarly, only the Sun published the naked pictures of Prince Harry as he partied in a Las Vegas penthouse. However, the right to privacy has been a source of contention between the press and the Royals.

 

Clarence House once even refused to reveal the name of Kate and William's new cocker spaniel puppy, calling it an invasion of their privacy. Kate finally revealed the name of the black pup three weeks after royal aides refused to confirm it. She told schoolchildren in Oxford it was called Lupo (Italian for wolf) while on an engagement.

 

The Royal couple are two of the world's most recognisable people but it can be a struggle to guard their privacy Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, and her sister Pippa, flew out at the same time and are renting a villa nearby.It is understood that bikini photographs of Pippa are also being touted for sale.

 

Mustique, a private island with just 74 villas and one small hotel, is where Princess Margaret once had a holiday home and is frequented by stars including Mick Jagger.

 

Kate and William, who were accompanied by a team of bodyguards, have chosen the island for seven of their last eight holidays because of the privacy it affords them. Mustique is patrolled both on-shore and off-shore by the island’s private security team, but they failed to spot the paparazzi waiting for the couple to emerge on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

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