LONDON (Reuters) - Paparazzi camped outside Pippa Middleton's home offer hundreds of photographs of British Prince William's new sister-in-law to newspapers every day, a tabloid picture editor said Wednesday.
Daily Mail Picture Editor Paul Silva said his paper received a barrage of Middleton images from photo agencies and freelance photographers every time she left her house.
"At the moment we have a situation where there must be nine or 10 agencies outside her door every day," Silva told an ongoing public inquiry into British press standards set up in the wake of a phone-hacking scandal.
"She goes to get a coffee or she goes back into her house, you get about 300 to 400 pictures on that a day."
Middleton unexpectedly shot to fame with a figure-hugging white dress she wore as the maid of honor during last April's royal wedding when her sister Kate married William, son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.
Silva said his paper declined to use any pictures of Middleton, whose royal sister now has the official title: the Duchess of Cambridge, unless she was attending an event to which photographers were invited.
"There is no reason to photograph her when she is out and about doing her own thing," Silva said.
He said there was no justification for using such photos and all British newspapers appeared to apply the same policy.
Before the royal wedding, the independent watchdog the Press Complaints Commission issued a warning to newspapers not to harass members of the Middleton family after images of Pippa and her mother out shopping in London appeared across the Internet.
The British media has generally taken a more cautious attitude toward publishing pictures of the royal family since William's mother Princess Diana died in a 1997 Paris car crash after a high-speed chase involving the paparazzi.
(Reporting by Michael Holden, editing by Paul Casciato)
