Pippa Middleton’s Best Birthday Gift? Bikini Photos Taken Off Newspapers' Portals

As Pippa Middleton turned 28 on Tuesday, the Duchess’ younger sister is said to have got her best birthday gift a day before when three British newspapers agreed to take her bikini pictures off their portals.

Images of Pippa and sister, Kate Middleton, in bikinis were published in The Mail on Sunday, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror and on their Web sites, as the Middleton sisters were caught on lens relaxing on a boat.

The pictures were of the year 2006 and showed them sunbathing off the Spanish Mediterranean island of Ibiza. They were accompanied by their brother James and mother Carole.

The three publications that released the photos of the Middleton sisters following the royal wedding of Kate and Prince William in April also created huge media interest in Pippa, who was the bridesmaid.

According to the Press Complaints Commission (CPC), the Middleton family had complained of privacy-stripping over the release of private pictures of the family.

They complained that the newspapers had published photographs of them on a boat, taken five years ago, “in a place where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

CPC said the family also alleged that their boat was hounded by paparazzi to get the photographs. However, the newspapers responded saying that the set of photographs had been published on numerous occasions since 2006 without complaint and argued that the boat had not been followed.

The complaint was resolved on Monday as the newspapers removed the photograph from their Web sites and have agreed not to republish it.