The couple are also demanding a "very significant fine" from France's Closer magazine for publishing the photographs, taken during a three-day break in a chateau in Provence, southern France, in September 2012.

William expressed his anger at the incident in a statement read to a court in Nanterre, west of Paris, where six media representatives, including three photographers, went on trial for alleged invasion of privacy.

In a damning account of the impact of the photographs on his family, the Duke of Cambridge stated that the images were "all the more painful" given the harassment linked to the death of his mother.