Royal spokesman and police say methods, including use of other children to draw toddler into view, also put photographers at risk of armed intervention

Kensington Palace has issued an unprecedented warning to paparazzi, accusing photographers of harassing Prince George and using “increasingly dangerous tactics” to obtain covert images of the third in line to the throne.

Paparazzi intent on selling expensive images to foreign publications have hidden in car boots and among sand dunes, and have used other young children as bait to draw their “No 1 target” into view, the palace said in an unusually strongly worded open letter.

The aggressive tactics – which will draw comparisons with the harassment experienced by the prince’s late grandmother, Diana, Princess of Wales – were creating a “very real security risk”, said Jason Knauf, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s communications secretary.

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He also suggested that by employing tactics similar to those likely to be used by anyone wishing to cause the prince harm, unscrupulous photographers were also putting their own lives in danger.



“The worry is that it will not always be possible to quickly distinguish between someone taking photos and someone intending to do more immediate harm,” Knauf said. “[T]he incidents are becoming more frequent and the tactics more alarming. A line has been crossed and any further escalation in tactics would represent a very real security risk.”

The Metropolitan police, which provide protection to the royal family, issued a separate statement, saying photographers were “potentially putting themselves at risk from armed intervention” during protection operations in which their armed officers had to make “split-second” decisions about the use of force.

Detailing a catalogue of recent intrusions into the family’s privacy, Knauf said paparazzi had been discovered on private property in fields and woodland around their home in Norfolk, had hidden in sand dunes on a rural beach to take photos of George playing with his grandmother, and put the Middleton family home in Berkshire “under steady surveillance”.

Young children had been used to lure the prince into view in playgrounds, while photographers had stalked the movements of George and his nanny – as well as other palace staff – around London parks and used long lenses to take images of the duchess with her son. Last week a photographer set up a “hide” in his car with sheets and supplies of food and drink as he staked out a play area.

“It is of course upsetting that such tactics – reminiscent as they are of past surveillance by groups intent on doing more than capturing images – are being deployed to profit from the image of a two-year-old boy,” Knauf said.



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The letter said paparazzi had “pursued cars leaving family homes”, which will raise fears of a repeat of the circumstances of Diana’s death. Charles Spencer described his sister as “the most hunted person of the modern age” after she was killed in a car crash while being chased by paparazzi in Paris in 1997.

Since her death and the subsequent public outrage, British news organisations have stopped publishing uncommissioned photographs and changed the editors’ code of practice to prohibit the publication of paparazzi pictures involving any kind of pursuit. A delicate compromise between the royal family and the British press has remained firm, with Clarence House providing regular official photographs of the Prince William and Kate, and their children, while regularly reminding editors, via the press watchdog, of their right to privacy.

The couple “have been delighted to share official photographs of Prince George and Princess Charlotte in recent months to thank the public for the thousands of kind messages of support they have received,” Knauf said, adding: “News photographers have had several recent opportunities to take photos of the family and these will be a regular occurrence as both children get older.”

But while the palace thanked reputable British, Commonwealth and US media organisations for refusing to publish unauthorised photos of the prince and his three-month-old sister, they said “a handful of international media titles” were still willing to pay for them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prince George and his sister, Princess Charlotte, in a picture released by their parents. Photograph: Duchess of Cambridge/PA

In September 2012 William and Kate said they were saddened by a “grotesque” invasion of their privacy when topless photographs of the duchess were published by the French celebrity magazine Closer. St James’ Palace said the photographs were “reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press during the life of Diana”.

Further topless photographs were then published in Italy’s Chi magazine. The same magazine published paparazzi pictures of a pregnant Kate sunbathing in a bikini on a private holiday in the Caribbean a year later.

“[W]e are aware that many people who read and enjoy the publications that fuel the market for unauthorised photos of children do not know about the unacceptable circumstances behind what are often lovely images,” the palace said. “We feel readers deserve to understand the tactics deployed to obtain these pictures.

“We hope a public discussion of these issues will help all publishers of unauthorised photos of children to understand the power they hold to starve this disturbing activity of funding.”

Although it is not the first time royal complaint about media intrusion, others have rarely gone into so much detail.

Last year, when the duke and duchess believed their son had been harassed during a trip with his nanny to Battersea Park their lawyers warned the photographer to stop following the toddler prince.

Knauf told the Guardian the letter was prompted by a sharp increase in paparazzi incidents this year and that the duke and duchess had been “heavily involved” in its writing.



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“We’ve noticed the paparazzi have started popping up a few times a week rather than a few times a month, and their tactics have become much more threatening and intrusive,” he said.

In the letter Knauf stressed that the couple were “concerned about their ability to provide a childhood for Prince George and Princess Charlotte that is free from harassment and surveillance”.

“Every parent would understand their deep unease at only learning they had been followed and watched days later when photographs emerged.”

The Met police statement said: “At a time when the national security threat level from international terrorism is at ‘severe’, all officers are at a heightened level of readiness. Photographers are potentially putting themselves at risk from armed intervention where our armed officers perceive a risk to the personal safety of their principal, the public and themselves.”