Potter fan wins Rowling interview

14-year-old Owen Jones beat thousands of Potter fans

A teenage Harry Potter fan has won the chance to conduct the only interview with JK Rowling on UK television just hours after her sixth book is released.

Owen Jones, 14, from Cardiff, was shortlisted from thousands of fans after judges liked his list of questions for the author.

He and his mother Allison, 38, then won a quiz on ITV1. The teenager said he had been "swotting like mad" for it.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be released at midnight on Friday.

Owen said: "I told the judges I would like to ask her if Harry Potter's life was a kind of childhood fantasy for her, and of course, what's going to happen in the next book.

Library donation

"Then I had to face the quiz. The moment I came through the door from school mum was firing Harry Potter questions at me."

He added he was "ecstatic" to have won, and that he had been nervous after realising "how good the other contestants were".

The interview will be shown on Sunday on ITV1 at 1730 BST.

Rowling is also donating her first signed copy of the new book to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh on Saturday 16 July.

Martyn Wade, its National Librarian, said he was "delighted", adding the library was close to where the first book was written.