By Ewan Palmer and Oliver Tree

Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of media mogul Rupert, has come out in defence of The Sun newspaper after the British tabloid published naked pictures of Prince Harry cavorting in a Las Vegas hotel room.

"I think he's cute, and I thought quite sweet," she said according to the Daily Telegraph.

"I feel bad for him, I mean, God, take mobile phones away [but] we've all seen the pictures online,"

"If newspapers can't participate in that I think it asks questions about where print and online [meet]."

Her comments came after The Sun, a News International [NASDAQ:NWS] title owned by her father, became the first British newspaper to publish the infamous naked photographs of Prince Harry - a move which it describes as a "crucial test of Britain's free Press."

The Sun's publication of the pictures follows a threat from St James's Palace that such a decision would amount to an invasion of privacy - even though the images have been available on the American website TMZ since 22 August.

Jonathan Collett, director of communications at the PCC, said that the pictures, published on the Sun's front cover, received 60 complaints from the general public on the morning they hit the newsstand.

Collett said that the PCC has yet to receive a complaint from the royal family's lawyers in relation to the Sun's cover.

The photographs appear under the headline "Heir It Is". The day before publishing the images, The Sun used two reporters to pose nude in a mock-up of the photographs for its front page.

In an editorial explaining its decision to run the pictures, the Sun describes as "absurd" the notion that it should not be able to use the photographs on its front page - which has been widely circulated and seen by millions online.

It adds: "There is a clear public interest in publishing the Harry pictures, in order for the debate around them to be fully informed. The photos have potential implications for the Prince's image representing Britain around the world."

Managing editor David Dinsmore explains the paper thought "long and hard" about whether to run the images.

He added: "We are not against his letting his hair down once in a while, for us this is about the freedom of the press."

"This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world on the internet but can't be seen on the nation's favourite paper read by eight million people every day.""This is about our readers getting involved in the discussion with the man who is third in line to the throne. It's a simple as that."

United kingdom Sun