Leveson Inquiry: JK Rowling - Press Left Notes Inside My Daughters Schoolbag

Описание: Leveson Inquiry: JK Rowling - Press Left Notes Inside My Daughters Schoolbag [24.11.2011]

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JK Rowling has told an inquiry into media ethics of the measures that she has taken to prevent her children being photographed by the press.

The Harry Potter author said a reporter had once tried to contact her by slipping a note into her five-year-old daughter's schoolbag.

Lord Justice Leveson is hearing from alleged victims of media intrusion at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Actress Sienna Miller and ex-motorsport boss Max Mosley spoke earlier.

Ms Rowling said children deserved privacy and that she had always tried to protect her private family life from the press, by taking measures which included wrapping them in blankets to hide them from paparazzi.

She said: "They (children) have no choice over who their parents are or how their parents behave.

"A child, no matter who their parents are, deserves privacy. Where children are concerned the issue is fairly black and white."

She said that when her daughter was in her first year at primary school, she unzipped her schoolbag one evening and "among the usual letters from school and the debris that a child generates, I found a letter addressed to me and the letter was from a journalist".

She added: "I felt such a sense of invasion that my daughter's bag.. it's very difficult to say how angry I felt that my five-year-old daughter's school was no longer a place of complete security from journalists."

The author also recalled how the PCC found in her favour after a photograph of her eight-year-old daughter in a swimsuit on a beach in Mauritius was published in a Scottish newspaper.

"Unlike an untruth that is in print, when an image is disseminated it can spread around the world like a virus.

"I feel that given fact that an image has a life that cannot be recalled... I'm sure it is still out there, that's the particular harm of an image."

The writer said shortly after her son was born she was besieged by photographers.

After a week had passed she believed they had disappeared so she decided to leave the house and take her children out, however she soon realised that a photographer with a long lens was there.

"I rather absurdly gave chase. How I thought I was going to outrun a 20-something paparazzo while pushing a buggy. The cumulative effect, it becomes quite draining."

Rowling then went on to discuss how she had been 'blagged', which is when somebody unknowingly reveals personal information.

She said in one instance shortly after she had moved house she received a phone call from somebody purporting to be from the Post Office saying they had a package for her and wanted to confirm her address.

"When I was blagged I realised half-way through giving the person details that I was being blagged," she said.

"This man said to me 'I am from the Post Office, I've got a package for you, what's your address?' Then I said 'Wait! You're from the post office, well what does it say on the package?' and he hung up."

Rowling also said her then boyfriend (now husband) was duped by a journalist who pretended to be from the tax office into giving out personal information.

"He gave them everything - address, pay grade, National Insurance number. The next day flashes went off in his face - the paparazzi had found him."

The author added: "Like a lot of people who have agreed to give evidence at this inquiry, we are not asking for special treatment.

"We are simply asking for normal treatment... and I am simply asking for that on behalf of my children."

Rowling confirmed she had not been a victim of phone hacking as "she hardly used her phone in the 90s".

Thanks to the BBC

Monday 24th November 2011