JK Rowling 'felt invaded' at note put by press in daughter's schoolbag

Harry Potter author describes press intrusion to Leveson inquiry and says she felt 'under siege' from paparazzi

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has spoken at the Leveson inquiry of her horror at discovering a letter from a journalist inside her five-year-old daughter's schoolbag.

In a two-hour appearance before Lord Justice Leveson at the high court on Thursday, Rowling told of how she frequently felt "under siege" from photographers and gave a string of examples of alleged press intrusion.

Rowling said the most "outrageous" intrusions were when journalists targeted her children at school. "In the first burst of publicity surrounding [Harry Potter] I unzipped her schoolbag in the evening; among the debris I found an envelope addressed to me from a journalist," Rowling added.

"It's my recollection that the letter said that he intended to ask a mother at the school to put this in my daughter's bag I don't know how this got in my daughter's schoolbag.

"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 felt that my five-year-old daughter's school was no longer a place of complete security from journalists."

Later Rowling recalled how a journalist from the Scottish Sun had contacted the headmaster of her daughter's school, claiming that there had been complaints about her daughter from other pupils and parents.

"My daughter was being accused of some kind of bullying," she said. "There was not one word of truth in it To approach my daughter's school was outrageous."

More details soon...

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