Friend: Actresses "under siege" from paps

Rupert Friend has claimed that Hollywood actresses are "chased, stalked, and put under siege" by members of the paparazzi.

The 28-year-old actor, who is dating Keira Knightley, said the behaviour constitutes harassment in his mind.

He told The Independent: "It's particularly distressing to me to observe that we're fine with these young women - and it normally is young women - being chased, stalked and put under siege by battalions of strange men who sleep in their car and follow them and take pictures up their skirts, and when they throw their dummy out or whatever, everyone thinks they've gone mad.

"I would defy anyone not to be affected by what is, I think, harassment. I just think it's slightly below a moral code that I have as a man or as a human being. To chase people, it just seems very bestial."

Friend will next appear in The Young Victoria, which centres on the monarch's marriage to Prince Albert, and is released in cinemas on March 6.