New Privacy Row After Pictures of Kate Middleton's Supermarket Shop

A fresh royal privacy row is brewing after paparazzi pictures of Kate Middleton shopping at her local supermarket on the island of Anglesey in Wales were published in the UK yesterday.

A senior courtier told the Daily Beast today that Kate's team at the palace is "considering their options" after the British press flouted a long-standing agreement not to publish snatched pictures of Kate going about her daily business.

Although Kensington Palace has long accepted that they cannot prevent foreign media publishing long-lens pictures of the Duchess, they have in recent years succeeded in striking deals with most of the domestic UK media whereby access and the odd tip are traded in return for self-censorship when it comes to pictures which intrude on her private life. The UK media has demonstrated particular restraint in choosing not to publish pictures taken without authorization of Kate in Wales.

So the publication of pictures of Kate’s supermarket sweep by a number of papers yesterday, including the usually staunch Daily Telegraph, which also listed all the items in her trolley, came as something of a shock.

Less friendly words than usual have since been exchanged between Kensington Palace and the Telegraph, questioning “the news value and public interest in publishing photos taken surreptitiously of The Duchess going about her daily business,” according to a source.

There will be dismay in the palace that the British papers are once again testing the boundaries when it comes to sneaked pictures of Kate.

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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