David Molyneaux was leading an ethics course for senior Vietnamese accountants and regulators in Hanoi in August when one participant asked him a tricky question. The delegate had earlier been given a pirated copy of the latest Harry Potter novel and wanted to know whether it was morally acceptable for him to read it.

Mr Molyneaux, a practising Church of Scotland minister and a former partner at Coopers & Lybrand, thought he had resolved the dilemma when he offered him his own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.