J.K. Rowling describes media 'Hounding'

J.K. Rowling describes media 'Hounding'

J.K. Rowling chased from home by press, she says

London (CNN) -- Paparazzi hounded "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling after her children were born so constantly that she felt like a hostage in her own house, she told a government-backed inquiry into British press ethics and practices Thursday.

She could not go outside without being photographed for a week after the births of her second and third children, she told the Leveson Inquiry.

And it was "hard to say how I angry I was" at finding that a journalist had managed to slip a note into her 5-year-old daughter's school bag, she said.

"A child, no matter who their parents are, deserves privacy. ... It's a fairly black-and-white issue," she said, arguing that a child had no say in who their parents were or what they did.

She had to move out of an earlier house because of harassment by journalists, she said.

"I really was a sitting duck for anyone that wanted to find me," Rowling said of the home she bought just as her fictional boy wizard became a worldwide sensation in 1997.

Rowling then described how a manuscript of one of her books was stolen from the printers and came into the hands of The Sun newspaper after apparently being found by an unemployed man "in a field."

She had to take legal action to prevent the contents of the book being revealed pre-publication, she said, and felt The Sun was trying to turn the situation into a photo opportunity.

"I felt I was being blackmailed -- what they really wanted was a photo of me gratefully receiving back the stolen manuscript," she said.

Rowling said a "wholly untrue" Daily Express story, which claimed she had based an unpleasant character on her ex-husband, had meant she had to have a "horrible" conversation with their young daughter to explain that it was not the case.

"This episode caused real emotional hurt," she said, because her daughter had to cope with other children believing that about her father.

Rowling added: "It portrayed me as a vindictive person who would use a book to vilify anyone against whom I had a grudge."

Rowling also pointed to a story published in the Sunday Mirror, which claimed her husband had given up his job as a doctor "to be at the beck and call of his obscenely rich wife," she said.

This was "damaging misinformation" about her husband, who is not a celebrity, she said, because it led colleagues to believe he had abandoned his medical career. The paper subsequently apologized.

Defamatory articles spread like fire and are difficult to contain, she told the inquiry, but she had no "magical answer" to the problem of abuses by the press.

Actress Sienna Miller told the probe earlier Thursday it was "terrifying" to be hounded by press photographers as a young woman.

J.K. Rowling describes media 'Hounding'