Blackmail
In June 2005, Aaron Lambert, a security guard at a book distribution centre in Corby, Northamptonshire, England, stole a number of pages from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince six weeks before its intended publication date. He was arrested a day later after negotiations to sell them to John Askill, a journalist from The Sun, turned violent. Lambert reportedly fired a shot from his imitation Walther PPK pistol, but Askill was unharmed. At his trial the following October, Lambert pleaded guilty to threatening Askill and to attempting to blackmail Harry Potter's publishers, Bloomsbury. In January 2006, Lambert was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. In November 2011, in her testimony before the Leveson Inquiry, Rowling said that the Sun had attempted to "blackmail" her into a photo-op in return for returning the stolen manuscript.
Read more about this topic: Legal Disputes Over The Harry Potter Series
Famous quotes containing the word blackmail:
“What did you do with your fear,
later? Through the years of humiliation,
of paranoia and blackmail and near-starvation, losing
the love of those you loved, one after another,
parents, lovers, children, idolized friends, what kept
compassion’s candle alight in you....”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)