How Palace handling of Kate Middleton photo crisis fuelled yet more conspiracy theories - from claims she face swapped her Vogue shoot, sent Pippa out as a body double and used shot from 2023

The facial recognition expert who outed Vladimir Putin's Salisbury poisoners today stepped in to dismiss one of the many wild and unfounded conspiracy theories about the Princess of Wales and her health. Eliot Higgins, the journalist and founder of Bellingcat, has laughed off claims that Kate Middleton's light editing of a family photo for Mother's Day included swapping her face with a Vogue cover shot from eight years ago. Some more ridiculous claims include Kate using a body double - or sister Pippa - as a stand-in when the Princess of Wales was seen with her mother last week and with William yesterday. my analysis of the kate middleton photo saga is that they took her face from the vogue cover she did years ago and edited it in pic.twitter.com/JLXts08zp5 — Ruby Naldrett March 11, 2024 Kensington Palace released the first picture of the Princess of Wales since surgery but the public were quick to notice the photoshop fail and soon after agencies ordered a 'kill notice' Bellingcat's Elliot Higgins shared close-ups of the Vogue cover from 2016 and Mother's Day to show the differences in the two images including Kate's eyes, mouth, hair and eyebrows Mr Higgins, who outed the Skripal poisoners using forensic analysis of images, CCTV and documents said the theory was more 'parody' than truth Sharing like-for-like matches to prove the Vogue cover theory is false, he said: 'It's not pixel perfect, if you actually look closely at the details you'll see numerous small differences'. One of the wild theories floating around is that Kate is using a body double - or her sister Pippa - here yesterday with William and last week with Carole Middleton Photos published in the US last week - but not in the UK media - have been seized upon by conspiracy theorists too Some of Kate's editing caused glitches in the image.