( AFP ) - Most newspapers refused to publish photographs of Prince William and his girlfriend Saturday after the young royal complained of aggressive and threatening behaviour as they left a nightclub.
William's spokesman Paddy Harverson said Friday that the 25-year-old was concerned after paparazzi photographers on motorbikes chased the car in which he and Kate Middleton were travelling early on Thursday morning.
Harverson said such actions were "incomprehensible" in the week in which a coroner's inquest into the death of William's mother princess Diana opened in London. She was killed in a car crash in 1997 while fleeing paparazzi.
Pictures of William and Kate leaving the glitzy Boujis club in an upmarket west London suburb appeared in London's Evening Standard and thelondonpaper freesheet Friday.
It was the first time they had been photographed together since rekindling their romance. But all the country's tabloids bar The Sun on Saturday opted not to use them, the latter arguing the snaps had been taken before they left.
The photographer who took the picture published in The Sun, the Evening Standard and thelondonpaper defended his behaviour, saying the image was taken "in a civilised and controlled manner" and no-one tried to stop him.
"When the car drove off first time, nobody followed," Alessandro Copetti, who works for the Matrix agency, told BBC radio Saturday.
"A few minutes later the car... decided to come back and drive in front of some photographers, who made the wrong decision to follow and chase at that point."
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) watchdog said it does not directly regulate freelance photographers but urged newspaper and magazine editors who are "not to publish photographs which are taken as a result of harassment".
"It can of course be difficult for editors to establish the exact circumstances in which a photograph is taken," it added in a statement.
"But it is of the utmost importance not to use photographs which have been taken in a manner that may have compromised the safety of individuals, which may include pursuit in vehicles."
Middleton got an apology from the Daily Mirror tabloid in March this year after complaining to the PCC about "intrusive" photographs of her walking to work.