The studio producing the new Beauty and the Beast film has denied there was a plot to kidnap former Headington School pupil Emma Watson.

Reports had circulated that a taxi driver at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, had allegedly overheard a conversation by two staff members planning to kidnap the 25-year-old Harry Potter star.

Miss Watson has lived in Oxfordshire since the age of five and spent a year studying at Oxford University’s Worcester College in 2012.