Palace issues warning to paparazzi targeting Prince George

LONDON -- Kensington Palace issued a warning on Friday for paparazzi targeting Prince George. Palace officials said some photographers were going to "extreme lengths" to snap a picture of the young royal, and a series of photographs showing two year old Prince George playing on Norfolk beach with his maternal grandmother Caroline Middleton seems to have been the last straw for the young royal family, CBS News correspondent Debora Patta reports.

In one of the most robust and strongly-worded letters ever issued by Kensington Palace, the royal family said Prince George has become the number one target of paparazzi photographers. He has only been seen in authorised public photographs a few times since he was born, and now the palace is fed up.

"A line has been crossed," the letter said. "Any further escalation in tactics would represent a very real security risk."

The palace said photographers had gone so far as to monitor the movements of the young prince and his nanny, use other children to lure George into view, and hide in sand dunes on beaches to get a good shot.

Prince George's parents have always expressed their desire to give their children as normal a childhood as possible without having to keep them behind the palace walls, Patta reports. Prince William has been particularly adamant that only authorised photographs of his young children be published, given his own mother Princess Diana's experience with the media. She was hounded by the paparazzi right up until the last moments of her life.

The royal family appealed to both the media and the public not to use paparazzi images of the young royals. They said they knew that every parent would understand their deep unease over strangers following them and taking photographs of their children without permission.