Is this correct, pictures published of Kate knickerless?

[MrsjREwing]

DM can't have this righ can they?

[phantomnamechanger]

This is absolutely disgusting behaviour from the press - no other young married couple in the world would expect to be treated like this and why should they. In any other circumstances the photographer would be thought of as a dirty perv, a peeping tom.
I just hope the 2 of them are strong enough to get through all this sh** and the way they so far have coped with their public lives with all this rubbish going on is really remarkable. Good luck to them both.

[perfectstorm]

Mach I apologise; I posted very late last night and misread your post. I thought you were saying that you would still think it was acceptable to use long lenses and stalk people, but if they were using advanced technology then that would not be okay. Rereading, you were actually making the point that the level of invasion of her privacy is unacceptable in that it would make it impossible for her to ever have a private life at all if deemed acceptable.

I agree that changing your mind on something this polarised is really hard, and I'm sorry I didn't recognise that that was what you've done.

[THERhubarb]

Completely agree niceguy2 and the photographer in question plus the magazine editor should be facing court charges of gross invasion of privacy. If this had been an ordinary member of the public I'm pretty sure they would be arrested. I really don't see what difference it makes her being who she is.

The whole thing is disgusting and incredibly seedy.

[niceguy2]

She does indeed have rights and I would have thought a reasonable person would have thought she was in private. The villa was nowhere near any public highway and incredibly secluded.

I've seen a photo of the location from where the Pap shot the photos. It was so far away that he must have been carrying a 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter. In layman's terms it's such a bloody big lens that no reasonable person would have expected that.

Personally I think the whole "Well she should have known better" argument is akin to blaming a rape victim for going out wearing skimpy clothes.

[THERhubarb]

Mach has changed her opinion perfectstorm. It takes real guts to admit to a change of heart on a thread such as this. Not sure why you insist on having a go at her but I suggest that this reflects rather badly on you.

Kate Middleton is a woman just like any other and should be treated as such. I uphold the rights of any woman to go about her daily business without being subjected to such intrusive and degrading attention. No woman should have indecent photographs taken of them and then published for all the world to see. No woman should become a virtual prisoner in her own home for fear of greedy press.

The only thing we can do is to object loudly and strongly about this and refuse to buy the mags or search for the pictures. Whilst there is demand, people will stoop to new lows.

She has rights like any human being.

[perfectstorm]

Mach if you are defending behaviour that, had it occurred in this country, could have earned ten years on the sex offender's register and a year in jail, then you shouldn't be too astonished to get short shrift.

Most people are not sympathetic to victim-blaming in defence of sex offenders.

[BerylStreep]

Poor woman.

Particularly given that Princess Diana was literally pursued by paps to her death.

I hope they can take legal action which will act as a deterrent in future. What about all these super-injunctions that people get, can they not get one of those?

[Machadaynu]

Actaully I'll have one more go:

Position 1 (that which I formerly held)

If she walked down The Mall naked in rush hour, there would be pictures. This would be 'her fault' in the sense that it would be an entirely predictable and foreseeable outcome.
If she stayed in a windowless room for all eternity, there would be no pictures.
She - naturally - is taking some middle line between these to extremes.

When I thought the pictures were taken from relatively close with old-fashioned means - a long lens - I thought she had perhaps strayed too close to the 'naked down The Mall' end of the spectrum and as such the taking of pictures was slightly predictable, and she was partly responsible. Although actually it's the public who are ultimately to blame really for creating the demand for the images, but that point seems to have been ignored.

I suggested she could have stayed somewhere more private.

Position 2 (which I now hold)
I have new information (new to me) about the lengths people go to in order to get these pictures, and I now realise that really, anywhere that isn't a locked windowless room is not 'safe' for her.

I came on the thread to explain this position and pass on the information I have gleaned.

I have been educated, and have thus changed my opinion based on new information.

However, you seem to want to want an argument.

[Machadaynu]

I give up!

[SoupDragon]

The only person to blame is the sick little wanker who took the photos.

[SoupDragon]

So you are blaming her for it then.

[Machadaynu]

If something is foreseeable and you do nothing to prevent it, you are partially to blame.

For example, if I leave a cup of water in the middle of the front room it will get knocked over. It's partly the fault of the person who knocks it over, but it's also partly my fault for leaving it there - probably mainly my fault actually.

My point was I assumed the paps were still basically using a camera and a long lens as they have done for decades, thus the pictures were forseeable.

However, I've come back on the thread to change my point because I know now they use more than just a long lens, they use drones -basically a little unmanned helicopter with a camera on. That seems to make nowhere private, and things a lot less predictable, so I now have much more sympathy for her.

[SoupDragon]

Saying that she should have taken more precautions is blaming her. At least in some part.

[Machadaynu]

I'v ejust read that paps are using teachniques I didn't know about, such as flying drones with cameras about. Obviously this means that anywhere outdoor is not 'safe'

I had thought it was still just a case of hanging about with a long lens, which I don't think is a good thing, but getting upset about it is a little like getting upset that people can be selfish.

The drones thing though is a different level.

I've never blamed her for it, I've just said that I think it's inevitable such pictures would emerge if it was possible to get them, and perhaps she should have taken more precautions. However,I hadn't realised what lengths they were going to in order to get them. if they are sending in drones then there isn't much you can do and she has my sympathies.

[perfectstorm]

A guy who took photos of a couple in a ground floor flat with curtains open having sex, and showed people at the pub those pictures, was jailed for a year and put on the sex offenders register for a decade last year. He took the images from a place he had a right to be, as he was visiting someone who lived in the same building. Doesn't make it legal at all. It's a sexual crime, as the requirement to register on the SOR indicates. Though it may not matter if he is on the Register or not, as he is currently on remand for murder. He is alleged to have stabbed someone to death at a party, shortly after being released for the sexual offence. Nice chap.

Cannot fathom how or why people are blaming the victim of a sexual offence for her being treated this way. I can't see many on MN rushing to blame the victim in any other offence that could earn ten years on the register, plus a year in jail. She's a human being and deserves the same support and sympathy as anyone else. I am a republican btw.

And it sounds from the comments as if she used a towel to shield herself from staff/visitors in case someone wandered past, because she couldn't possibly know that a stalker was precisely opposite, almost a mile away. Horrible. Makes you shiver - imagine a creepy shit watching you get changed in your room in daytime when you have a big garden and assumed nobody could see - but they are using binoculars? Vile.

[grimbletart]

This is the same attitude of some towards e.g. rape - "she was in a bar", "she was drunk", she had a short skirt on and was walking late at night" i.e. victim blaming/naivety etc.

It doesn't matter what you could or could not expect - the fault is with the person committing the offence -100%.

Yes, it's not unlawful to take a photograph from a public road. The bastards doing this could not have seen this unless they were aliens with special long range eyesight.

The fact that it needed exception long range camera lens means they didn't just stumble across the situation by accident. They had to a) find out where she was and b) lie in wait with long range lens for an opportunity.

Sick, money grabbing wankers.

[Machadaynu]

I didn't say it was in the public interest.

I said the public is interested. That isn't the same thing.

The public is interested therefore there is a market for the images therefore there would surely be an expectation on the part of the house of Windsor that they would be taken if possible?

[CotherMuckingFunt]

I don't give a shit what the law is. It is utterly disgusting that someone has taken these photos and even more disgusting that another person has chosen to publish them.

They are sick bastards. As someone said upthread, I'd love to see how they'd react if it was their wife/daughter/husband/son. Sick.

[1605]

WHAT is the public interest in someone else's growler, MAcha?

Naked pictures so that grubby men can jack off to a princess?

[1605]

I would have thought 300 metres away from a public road, behind a 6 foot perimeter wall, would satisfy anyone's standards of privacy, Macha

[1605]

This was a sexual offence against a young woman.

It doesn't matter who that woman is.

NO woman should have pictures of her vulva in the public domain unless she has explicitly chosen to put them there herself.

It doesn't matter who she is, and I hope the police are involved PDQ, because this is a criminal offence and not a civil one.

[Machadaynu]

which is what I said earlier.

I would argue that, given the obvious public interest, she can't reasonably have an expectation of privacy if she is visible from a public place.

[edam]

Not in the UK, anyway, and not in France where their privacy laws are even more strict - yet the penalty for ignoring them is relatively small compared with what paps can make by selling these.

[edam]

It's not legal to take pictures of people when they are somewhere where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, actually.

[Machadaynu]

She has got the same rights as everyone else - it's legal to take pictures of people in public. Note that I don't say that's the same as moral.

There is just a lot more interest of pictures of her because of her position. There's not so much money to be made in pictures of Angela from accounts, but I suspect if you do an image search for women on beaches or similar you will find plenty of images of women on beaches.

She doesn't need tp "spend all her money on a virtual fortress" - the villa I mentioned was £1200 for a fortnight, for two, including flights and car hire (albeit 13 years ago) There was no way anyone could have overlooked the pool without a lens so long it would have distorted time. As heir to the throne she had access to rather more money than that.