First paparazzi pictures of UK’s Prince George out in Hello! magazine

The 32-year-old Duchess of Cambridge’s silence appeared to be at odds with past objections to “private” photographs of her taken in public places, and raises the question of whether she is exercising “image control” rather than protecting her privacy, legal experts were quoted by The Telegraph as saying. While Prince William and Kate have taken legal action in the past over “off-duty” photographs, Kensington Palace indicated to Hello! that it would not take action on this occasion if it published the photos, the report said.

Royal sources were quoted by the daily as saying that Kensington Palace had not objected to the pictures, in which the Duchess is groomed and smiling, because they were taken “in a public place, without any harassment or pursuit”. Yet only last week, the Palace had asked newspapers not to print photographs of a grumpy-looking Duke of Cambridge getting off a train at Cambridge station. The photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge, carrying Prince George on her hip, were taken as she and her family got off a British Airways flight in the Caribbean and switched to a smaller aircraft for the short hop to Mustique, where the family have been celebrating Carole Middleton’s 59th birthday.

The Duke of Cambridge, who is in the middle of a 10-week course at Cambridge University, did not join them. Front page photographs of the Prince in a pale blue romper suit and sunhat were accompanied by the headline, “Hasn’t he grown! Prince George’s first holiday as doting Kate jets off on a sunshine family break.”

William and Kate are still fighting a privacy battle in the French courts over photographs of the Duchess sunbathing at a French villa which were taken from a public road.