British actress Sienna Miller and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling have told the Leveson hearing into U.K. media ethics about how they have been hounded by reporters, photographers and television cameramen, who have intruded on their privacy, and, in Rowling's case, her children's as well. Miller, whose romance with Jude Law became fodder for the tabloids, recalled being chased by as many as 10-15 paparazzi in 2005 and 2006. "I would often find myself -- I was 21 -- at midnight running down a dark street ... and the fact that they had cameras in their hands made that legal," she said. When reports about her personal life began appearing in the tabloids, she recalled, she blamed friends and relatives for leaking the information, unaware that her telephone had been hacked by reporters. (In May a British unit of News Corp agreed to settle Miller's lawsuit against News of the World for $160,000.) In separate testimony, Rowling recalled the time she discovered a letter to her from a reporter among the notes from her daughter's teacher. "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." Rowling urged that the panel consider recommending laws that would protect the children of celebrities. "They have no choice over who their parents are or how their parents behave," she said.

24/11/2011