JK Rowling

JK Rowling accused the press of having an 'utterly cavalier' take on the privacy of her family

Credit: Ian West/PA

Children's author JK Rowling told the Leveson inquiry today about the impact on her children of being hounded by the press, which she said was like being "under siege".

Rowling told Lord Leveson's inquiry into press standards that a journalist had slipped a note for her into the schoolbag of her 5-year-old daughter. Another journalist, from the Scottish Sun, contacted her daughter's headmaster to ask about claims that the girl had upset classmates by revealing what happened at the end of the Harry Potter series.

Rowling said that the claim was untrue and that her daughter – who she said had been "characterised as a bully" by the journalist – had not actually known the outcome of the final book.

Although no story was published, Rowling accused the Sun in effect of a fishing expedition, calling the headmaster in the hope that the he would "inadvertently" give them some information.

"To approach my daughter's school like that, to me that was outrageous.

"I can only say that I felt such a sense of invasion, that my daughter's bag... It's very difficult to say how angry I I felt that my 5-year-old daughter's school was no longer a place of complete security."

Rowling also described repeated instances of being photographed by paparazzi while out with her children, both around her house in the UK and while on holiday.

The first set of holiday photographs published by the press included an image of her daughter in a swimsuit, which appeared both in print and online. Rowling later tasked her lawyers with "laboriously" removing as many versions of the image online as possible.

That set of pictures, taken in Mauritius, prompted a complaint to the PCC, which forbids newspapers from publishing pictures of children under 16 without consent.

After another set of pictures – this time including her second child – also appeared in the press and Rowling took legal action against the agency responsible, Big Pictures.

She told the inquiry that she had decided not to pursue the second privacy breach through the PCC after it had "failed" over the images of her first child.

Asked about the impact of the press attention on her children, she told the court: "The sense of being often unable to leave your house or move freely is obviously prejudicial to a normal family life.

"All of my children are aware of being suddenly pulled behind me … There is a general edginess when there are people in the vicinity.

"It's a nervy feeling to know you're being watched, and obviously that affects my children."

She accused the press of having an "utterly cavalier" take on the privacy of her family, which amounted to an attitude of "you're famous, you're asking for it", she said.

"We are not looking for special treatment," she told the court, "we are looking for normal treatment".

"I don't see myself as entitled to more than, just the same as."

But, she said, adjudications from the PCC were not a sufficient deterrent to warn newspapers against invasions of privacy.

She called the commission "toothless" and a "wrist-slapping exercise at best".

Rowling, who said she has been forced to lodge around 50 complaints and lawsuits as a results of breaches of her and her family's privacy, echoed evidence from several previous witnesses at the inquiry in criticising the speed and the prominence of corrections.

She said that the system would benefit from prior notification from the press, to give the subjects of stories to refute the contents of stories. Notification would, she said, "prevent a significant amount of damage".

Former FIA chief Max Mosley, who gave evidence directly before Rowling, has campaigned at the European Court of Human Rights for prior notification to become enshrined in European law. His appeal was rejected however.

Rowling said she had received certain information from the Information Commissioner's Office – which conducted Operation Motorman, a 2003 investigation into the use of private detectives by the press – which confirmed that she had been targeted by investigator Steve Whittamore.

The author said Whittamore appeared to have been "making investigations about me with people whose names I didn't recognise".

"I don't know what he was after. The bulk of what he was doing was trying to get in touch with people related to me, and making extensive enquiries into my extended family."

David Sherbourne, the lawyer acting on behalf of the individual core participants including Rowling, told the court that some information had been supplied by the ICO and there was more to come.

Rowling rose to prominence quickly after the publication of the first book in her Harry Potter series. She said in court today that, having heard the press often defend intrusive behaviour by claiming that the subject traded on their family life, she purposefully kept her family out of the public eye.

"I tried to abide by what I thought was the unwritten code.

"A significant section of the press have responded to that but, in my view, a significant section have seen it as a challenge.

"I tried to abide by the rules but I failed."

She began her evidence by saying that she had "no personal vendetta against the press" and "believe very very strongly in the freedom of the press and freedom of expression".

"I should make it clear from the start that alongside the kind of journalism we'll talk about today, there is very heroic journalism.

"I wonder sometimes why they are given the same name."
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