Prince Harry's First Public Appearance Since Being Snapped Naked In Vegas Will Be At The Paralympic Games

Games On

Prince Harry is to make his first public appearance since being photographed naked in a hotel suite and cheer on Paralympic athletes next week.

The prince will watch swimmers in the aquatic centre on Monday and later that day chat to sportsmen and women in the official meeting place for the country's competitors - ParalympicsGB House.

Headlines were generated around the world when pictures of Harry frolicking in the nude with an unnamed naked woman during a Las Vegas holiday emerged on a celebrity gossip website last Wednesday.

Only the Sun defied a request to UK newspapers, made by St James's Palace via the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), to respect the prince's privacy and not publish the pictures.

The tabloid's front-page image of Harry holding his genitals, and another inside of him with his bottom exposed, generated 3,600 complaints from the public to the press watchdog.

David Dinsmore, the Sun's managing editor, said the paper had "thought long and hard" about whether to use the pictures on Friday and that it was an issue of freedom of the press rather than it moralising about Harry's actions.

He told the BBC's Radio 5 Live the Sun did generally "fear" the PCC, but a decision had been made to publish the photos because of the public interest.

Harry, along with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, is an official ambassador of ParlympicsGB.

The prince will not be joining the Queen, William, Kate and other royals at tomorrow's opening ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games but may carry out other engagements in support of the athletes during the global sporting event, if his military duties allow it.

During Thursday the Cambridges will watch the sport of goalball at the Olympic Park and track cycling, and later that day Kate will attend swimming races.

The Duchess will undertake a solo engagement on Sunday watching the athletics at the Olympic Stadium.

A St James's Palace spokesman stressed the royal engagements at the Paralympic Games could be subject to change.

Harry will also attend an evening engagement on Monday, supporting the charity WellChild, which has the prince as its patron, by giving a speech at its awards ceremony and meeting the winners.

The decision by the Sun to print the naked pictures of the prince provoked a mixed reaction both within and outside the media industry.

Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said the newspaper had shown "absolute utter contempt" for the law and the Leveson Inquiry.

"It is not about privacy. It is about money, money, money. And they know that by exclusively printing the pictures, assuming they are the only (British) paper which does, they will get everybody buying the paper to see this."

In a Twitter exchange with Lord Prescott, Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corporation which publishes the Sun, denied taking the decision to print the photographs.

"Decision was rightly that of the editor, and I support. I was in Silicon Valley far removed," he wrote.

Posting again later, Mr Murdoch wrote: "Simple equation: free, open uncontrollable internet versus shackled newspapers equals no newspapers. Let's get real."

London Mayor Boris Johnson said he had a "deafening indifference" to the publication of the naked photos.

He told the BBC: "The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way."