IRELAND (NBC) - The editor of the Irish Daily Star has resigned
following an internal investigation into his tabloid's decision to
publish topless photos of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge,
while she was sunbathing in the south of France, the Irish Times reported.
Michael
O'Kane, the editor, was suspended in September after investors of
Independent Star Limited, the paper's parent company, demanded O'Kane be
removed from his position. Richard Desmond, whose Northern and Shell
company co-owns the paper, demanded that the paper be shut down,
according to the Times.
Following O'Kane's resignation Saturday, the editors at the Irish Daily Star expressed a different view of the situation, according to itv.com:
"Mr. O'Kane acted at all times in a highly professional and appropriate
manner and in the best interests of the newspaper," they said in a
statement.
The blurry, long-lens photos of the princess and
her husband, William, were originally published in Closer, a French
magazine. At the time, a statement from St. James' Palace in London said
the couple was "hugely saddened" by the publication. The royals
contended they had "every right to privacy in the remote house" where
they were sunbathing.
The
statement from St. James' Palace even drew a comparison to Princess
Diana, William's mother and the Princess of Wales: "The incident is
reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi during the
life of Diana, Princess of Wales, and all the more upsetting to The Duke
and Duchess for being so."
The images were not
published in Britain, nor were they published in the Northern Ireland
editions of the Irish Daily Star. Northern Ireland remains under British
rule.
Both co-owners of the Irish Daily Star had criticized O'Kane's decision to publish the photos but the Independent News and Media,
which has holdings in Ireland, Northern Ireland and South Africa,
ultimately decided that shutting down the paper would be unnecessarily
extreme, according to the BBC.
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Tabloids with the naked photos.
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