Matilda Battersby

Today's Family Lawyer • 1st May 2026

Freelance journalist wins reporting restrictions challenge in family proceedings - Today's Family Lawyer

A High Court judge has agreed to release redacted documents from family proceedings to a journalist from The Observer despite some of the material containing information which could only be considered in closed court for reasons of national security. The journalist may also publish the fact that one of appellants is a serving member of the British Army’s Special Forces.

Today's Family Lawyer • 23rd April 2026

Unregulated sperm donor loses declaration of parentage application

The Family Court has taken the unusual step of naming an unregulated sperm donor in a judgment on a parentage case.

Today's Family Lawyer • 18th March 2026

AI is blurring boundaries on legal advice, new LSB chief exec warns

Richard Orpin, the new chief executive of the Legal Services Board, has hailed legal services as a “huge economic success story,” but warned that “AI is blurring the boundaries between regulated and unregulated legal advice.”

The Bookseller • 10th March 2026

More women need to be published as 'thought leaders' to address non-fiction gender gap, LBF hears

Claire Shanahan, executive director of the Women’s Prize Trust, said there is an “authority gap” associated with women’s non-fiction at an event at the London Book Fair 2026.

Today's Family Lawyer • 5th February 2026

Family court grants journalist's application for psychologist's reports to 'advance open justice' - Today's Family Lawyer

A judge has granted a journalist permission to see reports by a psychologist in four private family law cases, having concluded that to do so would “advance open justice”.

The Bookseller • 12th January 2026

Author Shaun Rein's voice 'cloned with AI' to read book on 'deepfake' podcast

An author who discovered “deepfake” YouTube videos of himself reading chapters of a book published in the UK by John Murray Business – an imprint of John Murray Group, a division of Hachette UK – has suggested that video content is a “dangerous” new battle for publishers when it comes to breaches of copyright through AI.

The Bookseller • 22nd December 2025

Authors hit with 'deluge' of scam emails from fake marketers offering paid promotion

Authors are being hit with a "deluge" of scam emails, some of which appear to impersonate industry professionals, marketing agencies and famous authors.

The Bookseller • 20th December 2025

Audio 'no longer an afterthought' as publishers snap up raft of audio-first acquisitions

This year has seen a raft of “audio-first” acquisitions, suggesting audio is “no longer the afterthought” it once was, with books acquired exclusively for listeners, and the arrival of the UK branch of Simon Maverick, Simon & Schuster’s audio-focused imprint.

Today's Family Lawyer • 16th December 2025

Psychotherapist loses bid for anonymity, as Appeal Court rules judicial criticism doesn't trigger additional rights - Today's Family Lawyer

A psychotherapist who attempted to block being named in the judgment on a case for which she was a witness has had her bid for anonymity refused by the Court of Appeal.

The Bookseller • 12th November 2025

OpenAI copyright case reveals 'ease with which generative AI can devastate the market', says PA

A judge’s ruling that legal action by authors against OpenAI for copyright infringement can go ahead reveals “the ease with which generative AI can devastate the market”, according to the Publishers Association (PA).

The Bookseller • 16th October 2025

Tracks of my tears: where does the fault lie when books fail to hit?

Does the publishing industry have a gambling problem? And, if so, who loses? A recent long-read in Canadian magazine The Walrus raised the thorny issue of who is blamed when a book does not sell, suggesting that responsibility is placed unfairly on the shoulders of authors, who may struggle to get future deals if earlier books have bad “sales track”.

The Bookseller • 15th October 2025

Amazon algorithm change has led to ‘volatility in visibility’, warn indie authors

Digital-first publishers and self-published authors have told The Bookseller that book sales have been negatively impacted with “increased volatility in visibility” as a result of an algorithm change to the Amazon marketplace platform.

The Bookseller • 30th September 2025

Encyclopaedia Britannica publisher suing AI company Perplexity over 'content copying'

The publisher of Encyclopaedia Britannica and America’s Merriam-Webster dictionary is suing $20bn artificial intelligence (AI) company Perplexity alleging it copied its content without permission to power its “answer engine”.

The Bookseller • 9th September 2025

Author Sam Blake urges 'better protections' from Amazon after AI rip-off books appear under her name

A bestselling author has called on Amazon to provide better protections against AI-generated “rip-offs” after “fake” books were marketed to readers under her name on the Kindle platform.

Housing Today • 21st August 2025

Council knew risk of £6m loan to wholly-owned housebuilder a year before collapse

Leaked documents show Norwich City Council was aware its wholly-owned housebuilder would be unlikely to pay back £6m of public money almost a year before it entered liquidation.

The Bookseller • 19th June 2025

TikTok publisher 8th Note Press looks set to close as authors 'negotiate rights return'

A publishing business developed by the parent company of TikTok to cash in on the success of #BookTok appears to be closing – although neither the publisher or TikTok, nor the platform’s parent company and partners, will go on record, despite being approached by The Bookseller on multiple occasions. 8th Note Press, owned by the Chinese technology-giant ByteDance, was launched as a publisher of e-books intended to appeal to a “Millennial/Gen Z” audience in April 2023.

The Bookseller • 12th June 2025

Author Harriet Evans' despair as novel appears on pirated database three months before publication

Today (Thursday, 12th June) is publication day for Harriet Evans’ novel The Treasures (Viking). Except, before it even hits bookshelves and nightstands, the novel might well have already been scraped by Meta to train its artificial intelligence.

Housing Today • 12th June 2025

Starmer announces AI tool to speed up planning system

The government has announced the launch of a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool, designed in collaboration with Google, in order to speed up the planning system.

Housing Today • 3rd June 2025

Calls for better safety standards for children in ‘dangerous’ temporary accommodation after 80 deaths

A new report is urging better government regulation of safety standards for homeless families after it identified the deaths of 80 children living in temporary accommodation.

The Bookseller • 13th May 2025

Whydunnit? BBC Maestro’s AI Agatha Christie splits industry

It has been a week since BBC Maestro launched a two-and-a-half-hour masterclass from the famously publicity-shy Agatha Christie, who died 50 years ago. The project, which uses artificial intelligence to bring a simulation of the Queen of Crime back to life, has had a mixed reception, lauded as wonderfully creative by some and “a bit Frankenstein” by others.