Judgement postponed to September over topless photos of Kate Middleton
A judgment has been delayed in the trial held over the publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge.
A court in Nanterre, west Paris, was due to deliver its verdict on Tuesday but has postponed the hearing to September, a judicial source told AFP.
The trial of six people, including three photographers, linked to Closer magazine and regional newspaper La Provence was heard at the court in May.
The long-lens images of Kate, taken as she holidayed with the Duke of Cambridge in the south of France, adorned the front and inside pages of France's Closer magazine in September 2012.
They showed Kate sunbathing in Provence on the terrace of a private chateau owned by Viscount Linley, the Queen's nephew, and ran alongside an article about the loved-up pair entitled "Oh my God!".
Ernesto Mauri, 70, chief executive of publishing group Mondadori which produces Closer, faces one charge of using a document obtained by a breach of privacy, as does Marc Auburtin, 57, who was La Provence's publishing director at the time.
Laurence Pieau, 51, editor of Closer magazine in France, is charged with complicity.
Agency photographers Cyril Moreau and Dominique Jacovides and Valerie Suau, a photographer for La Provence, all face charges of invasion of privacy and complicity.
Moreau, 32, and Jacovides, 59, deny taking the topless photographs at the centre of the controversy, which are alleged to have been sold on to Closer.
Suau, 53, who is said to have taken photographs of Kate in her swimwear which were printed in La Provence, told the court she did not intend to breach the royals' privacy at the time.
Paul-Albert Iweins, representing Closer magazine, argued the photos did not constitute a breach of privacy and cast the young couple in a positive light.
A new date for the verdict is expected to be announced on Tuesday at the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre.
