Kate Middleton topless photos verdict: Closer magazine ordered to pay €100k in damages

A verdict has been reached in the trial regarding topless pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge – published in France's Closer magazine and local newspaper La Provence – by a judge today (5 September).

Presiding judge Florence Lasserre-Jeannin ordered Closer to pay €100k (£92k) to the royal couple in damages at the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Nanterre, LBC reports.

Kate and William originally sued the French magazine for £1.3m as well as La Provence for £42,000. They enlisted lawyers to sue six people alleged to have been involved, claiming an invasion of privacy.

It was originally expected to be handed down on 4 July but Lasserre-Jeannin and other judges claimed they needed more time to consider what to do.

Today's verdict comes nearly five years after the pictures were published. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge said their privacy was invaded while holidaying at a private chateau in Provence, southern France, in September 2012.

The invasive pap shots of topless Kate, who is currently pregnant with her third child, were published by the country's edition of Closer. They were believed to have been taken form a public road and splayed across the front and inside pages, with the headline reading "Oh my God!"

Local newspaper La Provence also published the pictures at the time.

In a statement previously read out to the court, Prince William said: "In September 2012, my wife and I thought that we could go to France for a few days in a secluded villa owned by a member of my family, and thus enjoy our privacy.

"We know France and the French and we know that they are, in principle, respectful of private life, including that of their guests.

"The clandestine way in which these photographs were taken was particularly shocking to us as it breached our privacy."

William, 35, added that the fact that the photographs were "all the more painful" in light of his mother's death and the harassment she experienced, which arguably played a part in her death in Paris 20 years ago.

Laurence Pieau, the 51-year-old editor of France's Closer magazine, is charged with complicity, while Ernesto Mauri, 70, chief executive of publishing group Mondadori, faces one charge of using a document obtained by breach of privacy. 56-year-old Marc Auburtin – who was the publishing director of the magazine at the time – faces the same charge.

Agency photographers Cyril Moreau, Dominique Jacovides and La Provence's Valerie Suau faced charge of invasion of privacy and complicity.