LONDON – Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria was allegedly sexually harassedby Jean-Claude Arnault, the French photographer at the centre of the crisisroiling the Swedish Academy.

According to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, three sources said theywitnessed Mr Arnault groping the then 27-year-old Crown Princess’s bottomat an event put on by the body, which awards the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Swedish writer Ebba Witt-Brattström, one of those present, told TheTelegraph that Mr Arnault had approached Victoria unexpectedly.

“He came lurking from behind and I saw his hand land on her neck and godownward. It was all the way down,” Ms Witt-Brattström said.

Victoria’s female Adjutant, a uniformed aide, had then leapt to her rescue,she said.

“She just flew herself on Arnault. She grabbed him, and ‘whop’, he wasgone. The Crown princess turned in surprise. I guess she had never beengroped. She just looked like ‘what?’”