Zeta Jones threatens action over 'sneak' topless photos

Catherine Zeta Jones and her husband, Michael Douglas, are threatening to sue a US radio station which posted pictures on its website of the actress apparently smoking while heavily pregnant.

Lawyers for the Hollywood couple, who last month won a High Court victory over unauthorised wedding pictures published in Hello! magazine, have accused the radio operator Clear Channel Worldwide of "continued malicious conduct" for allowing the paparazzi pictures on its websites.

One picture appeared to show Zeta Jones smoking a cigarette on a private estate in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, while expecting her daughter Carys.

Her lawyer's three-page letter to Clear Channel, posted on thesmokinggun.com, said the "surreptitiously taken" photos were an invasion of privacy and warned the couple could be awarded "substantial" damages. It described Zeta Jones, aged 33, as "heavily pregnant and topless" in the pictures.

Newsstands in the United States offered a further glimpse into the family's private life yesterday. Star magazine published a long lens shot of the newborn Carys asleep in her mother's arms on the cover of its latest issue, the first picture of the baby born three weeks ago.