J.K. Rowling Undoes Magazine's Spell

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling won an invasion of privacy case in London on Wednesday against OK!, a celebrity magazine that published photos of her and her 8-year-old daughter Jessica in their swimsuits on a tropical beach on the island of Mauritius. Britain’s Press Complaints Commission, an independent watchdog group, “thought that there was no justification in taking long-lens pictures of an 8-year-old girl in her swimwear without her knowledge and without the consent of a parent,” Reuters was told by a spokesman for the PCC. The commission is also insisting that OK! publish the 700-word adjudication in a prominent place. OK!’s publishers, Northern & Shell, were unavailable for comment. “I am delighted and relieved that the PCC has ruled in Jessica’s favor,” Rowling, who was said to have been “deeply distressed” by the pictures, said in a statement. “I am endeavoring to give her as normal an upbringing as possible and have made every possible effort over the last four years to protect her from press intrusion.” It was because government rules prohibited her from simultaneously working and receiving childcare benefits for Jessica, Rowling has told PEOPLE, that the then-destitute author began spinning Harry’s tales, writing in cafes. (The four Harry Potter books have since been translated into 42 different languages.) Jessica’s father, whom Rowling refuses to name, is a Portuguese man to whom she was married briefly.