The Sun’s royal editor has revealed that over half of the paparazzi photos of royals that the paper receives are not published because of ethical considerations.

Duncan Larcombe told the Leveson Inquiry that this was due to concerns over breaches of privacy and the Press Complains Commission code, he rejected any suggestion  that Clarence House put the newspaper under pressure not to run certain photographs.

He told the Inquiry that the Sun turned down photos of the royals stolen from Pippa Middleton’s car in 2009, the tipsters asked for £25,000 for the images.

Distancing himself from former editor Kelvin Mackenzie’s “lob it in” approach, Larcombe said that “it doesn’t work like that on royal stories” or on Fleet Street. He said it was particularly important to “get it 100 per cent right” with such stories.

However he admitted that the internet was “the elephant in the room”, many photos rejected by mainstream outlets finding their way online.

Larcombe added that every member of the public was a “potential paparazzo” in the age of camera phones, claiming that Prince Harry had little privacy unless he was “hiding in one of his castles”.

The Sun’s picture editor John Edwards told the Inquiry that more photos were now coming in from members of the public, though the majority of the 15-20,000 images the paper is offered per week still come from agencies.

Discussing pictures of a heavily pregnant Lily Allen shopping in London, Edwards said they were not published after a request from the singer’s agent’s request, despite Allen appearing happy to be shot in the photos. He added that there were celebrities that the paper would be reluctant to use photos of, such as Sienna Miller, due to their past experiences with the paparazzi.

When asked about the intense press coverage of the McCanns, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May 2007, Edwards said he had “tremendous sympathy” for the couple, who returned to a media scrum outside their home in Leicestershire after Madeleine’s disappearance.

“We got it spot on in Portugal, but may not have been so good when it came back to Leicestershire,” Edwards said.