this is bbc news. the headlines... the businessman, aaron banks, insists all donations he made to the leave campaign complied with electoral law and says his critics are trying to undermine brexit. we know the electoral commission has a bias in this. the chairman has called it a collection of nonsense. everybody is biased against you. it is 52 versus 48. tributes are paid to the former cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, sirjeremy heywood, who has died from cancer aged 56. eight children are injured after falling from a giant inflatable slide at a fireworks event in surrey. most have now been discharged from hospital but one child remains under observation. we don't still know yet exactly what happened but eight children appear to have come off near the top of the slide, or at the top of the slide, i am not

quite sure yet and landed on the floor beside it. leicester city's football players arrive in bankok tojoin the funeral of their former chairman vichai srivaddhanaprabha. a 33—year—old man from lincolnshire has become the first person to swim around the british coast. it feels weird now to sort of be looking back and almost reflecting because for 157 days i almost didn't allow myself to do that, so now it feels quite nice. and at 1:30pm, the travel show are in taiwan, visiting the ancient capital, and going behind the scenes at the biggest performing arts centre in the world. the pro—brexit businessman, aaron banks, has again insisted that all the money he provided

for the referendum campaign was generated from his own businesses in the uk, and none came from russia. the national crime agency has launched a criminal investigation into claims that millions of pounds came from sources which are not permitted under electoral law. manveen rana reports. amid calls from campaigners to cancel the interview, arron banks arrived at the bbc to once questions about where he had found the money to fund the brexit campaign. it was the first time he had been questioned in detail since the national crime agency announced he was under investigation. the electoral commission had cast doubt on the true source of the £8 million that aaron banks had lent to campaign groups for them he claimed the money came from rock services.

the commission expects it came from the parent company, rock holdings. the money trail was at the heart of the interview with andrew marr. where did the money come from?” the interview with andrew marr. where did the money come from? i am not using a super injunction to hide my affairs. it came from a uk company with cash generated in the uk. rock services. that is a shell company. we do not see how rock services can generate 8 million quid. we will explain ourselves and iam very quid. we will explain ourselves and i am very happy with it. arron banks was adamant the money came from uk—based company rock services. the electoral commission claim there we re electoral commission claim there were insufficient funds to justify such a large donation. as a criminal investigation gets under way, arron

banks can expect months of scrutiny about his finances. sirjeremy heywood, the former cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, has died from cancer at the age of 56. his career spanned over 30 years. all of the prime ministers who worked with him have today been paying tribute to him. theresa may — who said: david cameron said: gordon brown said: tony blairsaid... earlier, i spoke to sir simon fraser — former permanent under secretary at the foreign and commonwealth office — who paid his tribute. it is a very sad day.

we knew he was very ill but this is sooner than we expected and we hoped. condolences to suzanne and the family. he was an exceptional person, head and shoulders the best of this in whitehall in many ways he combined three particular things. a laser—like policy mind — an extraordinary capacity for hard work and an uncanny knack of manipulating the government machine to make things happen. not someone everyone would have heard of but a very influential and powerful person in the government of the country. it is a very difficultjob because you are powerful. you are also being pushed around by the buffeting winds of politics and yet you have to be impartial, you have to be not political. the tributes thatjeremy has had from prime ministers of different parties demonstrate how good he was at that. he was private secretary to three chancellors and worked very closely with four prime ministers and he won

the respect of them all. that is a tribute to his skill and intelligence dedication to thejob. what was the skill set he had that any really good civil servant has to have to be in that pivotal position for so long? different civil servants have different skills. he did not run big departments and manage big teams. he was the quintessential person at the heart of the team who knew how things were done and how decisions were made and how to manage the very tricky business of government, making hard calls when he had to make them and steering things through. managing people, understanding politicians, taking the system with him. i suppose a lot of people will have a view of senior civil servants probably based on yes minister where they think the civil servant is manipulating the politician. is the realjob of someone like sirjeremy to make things happen

for the politicians? a minister or prime minister says, "i want this to happen" and you have to do that the best of your abilities, no matter what you think. exactly that. civil servants advise ministers but ministers make the decisions and civil servants have to loyally execute the decisions. that is the deal. if you think about the issues he was involved in from black wednesday through the 2008 financial crisis and through to brexit you can see the sort of huge challenges he has been involved in facing. i was struck by the fact some people have been very emotional about him. yvette cooper was speaking about him earlier on today and pretty much close to tears. it was notjust a figure the politicians admired but very close to loved, i suppose. they knew him very well.

he had been at the heart of the machine for many years. behind his extraordinary dedication and professionalism there was a wicked sense of humour which helped to carry him through. eight children have been treated in hospital following an accident at a fireworks funfair in surrey. police declared a major incident at woking park last night after a giant inflatable slide collapsed, throwing children to the ground. families were told to leave the park and the fireworks display was cancelled. a popular town park left deserted, now the centre of an investigation, after a major incident was declared, last night. this morning, officials from the health and safety executive on the scene, looking for clues as to how eight children were left injured. it was very, very crowded. i mean, they say there was about 12,000 people coming. it looked about that number. and there's only a handful of rides, which meant the few rides

there were were very, very crowded indeed. 0rganisers, though, accept it was busy but not overcrowded. pretty shocked and distressed by the whole thing. i don't think the area was overcrowded. it happened during the build—up to the fireworks, so it wasn't as full as it would have been at 8pm. so we think there was probably something like 5,000 people in the park at the time when this incident occurred. the area around the inflatable slide still remains cordoned off this afternoon as the health and safety executive carry out their investigation to find out exactly what happened here. as you can see, behind me, this slide remains deflated. just behind that is a stall that didn't have time to pack up before police arrived. it was around 7:30pm yesterday when this evening of family fun was suddenly cut short. the park was evacuated, as ambulance crews tried to help the injured children. the air ambulance also called in to help. as the 30—foot slide was shut down, the firework display was abandoned.

the children injured here taken to hospital. some are now calling for a government review into the regulation of inflatables. what needs to happen is a temporary ban, and i stress temporary, ban, on bouncy castles and inflatables in big public areas until we've updated the regulations, until we've changed the inspection regime and parents can be 100% confident that when their children go on these things, there's nothing to worry about. a reassurance many parents may well be looking for, today. andy datson attended the event with friends. he said he saw children lying on the floor beside the slide after the collapse. i was here with some friends last night and we had walked passed the slide earlier. i noticed that there were a lot of children using it, not

just the slide but all the attractions, thousands of thousands of people. many young families. so i looked at it for a bit and better —— went off to the fireworks at about 7:45pm. we heard sirens and we saw the blue lights flashing, and i walked over in this direction, my closest exit, and the announcement came that there was a mass evacuation due to a huge emergency incident. while walking past the slide i noticed that there were a lot of children lying on the floor next to it on the right—hand side. about nine or ten ambulances. it was very immediately clear that it was a series incident. there was a bit of panic, a sense of worry, a lot of people not knowing what had happened. a lot of speculation.

for the most part, people left very quickly and calmly and allowed the emergency services to do theirjobs. this is one of woking's biggest events of the year. someone was saying it is in the region of 12,000 people here, that would not surprise me. the main arcade area where all the attractions are, it's quite small. so to have that many people in such a packed area would have caused a bit of difficulty for emergency services to wade through them. but all the attractions were being widely used, but particularly this one, it was a big one for younger children particularly. just due to the nature of it. i would say looking at it that the older children on it were ten or 11 years old, and when you are that young you

are not really paying attention to your safety, you are just looking for some fun, and that is what they were doing until this horrible event happened. the husband of a pakistani christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after eight years on death row has pleaded for asylum from the uk. asia bibi's husband, ashiq masih, said they were in great danger in pakistan. the supreme court overturned her conviction on wednesday, saying the case against her was based on flimsy evidence but she has yet to be freed. her acquittal sparked violent protests, and the government has now agreed to try to stop her leaving the country. earlier i spoke to tom tugendhat, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in parliament. he's calling on officials here and in pakistan to urgently review mrs bibi's safety. well, this is an innocent woman who has already spent many years

in prison for something that we wouldn't even begin to consider a crime and even the pakistan courts has said is not a crime because she didn't do anything. and so i think she should be released but sadly notjust released to home because the reality is that as we have seen in recent days that there is a very great danger of mob violence and of her being killed. the governor of punjab, who spoke out on her behalf was killed only seven years ago and a leading member of the cabinet, was killed in the same year, both of them. for speaking out against the way in which this woman has been treated. this is a matter of freedom of conscience and freedom of faith and we support the freedom of individuals to practice their faith or no faith all over the world. so, seeing this woman being victimised because of her christian beliefs in pakistan is extremely worrying and i think we should not only be

offering her asylum but we should be making it clear to the pakistan government that we view this with extreme seriousness. what would you like the pakistan government, the pakistan authorities, to do about this case? prime minister khan is very new in office and he has a reputation to make and he can make it in one of two ways. either he can become the spokesman for a hate—filled mob and watch a poor woman and herfamily be lynched or he can help her to escape from the threat of violence that we are seeing and help her into asylum, either into the united kingdom or canada or the united states or wherever frankly she chooses to go because i think this is a very clear case of freedom of conscience leading to genuine fear of persecution or death. police investigating the murder of a 17—year—old boy

near clapham south tube station have named the victim. scotland yard said malcolm mide—madariola from peckham was a student at a college in clapham. he was stabbed on balham hill at around 4.35pm on friday. the headlines on bbc news... the businessman, aaron banks, insists all his brexit donations complied with electoral law and says his critics are trying to undermine brexit. police say seven of the eight children who were being treated for "potentially serious injuries" following an incident at a fireworks funfair in woking have been discharged. the former head of the civil service, sirjeremy heywood, has died, less than a fortnight after he retired from his position as cabinet secretary. leicester city's football players are in bangkok to attend the funeral ceremonies of theirformer chairman vichai

srivaddhanaprabha. mr vichai died in a helicopter crash outside the king power stadium last saturday. four other people were also killed. the team flew out to thailand after their match against cardiff yesterday. 0ur south east asia correspondentjonathan head spoke from the funeral. we are on the second day of the funeral. we saw the players arrived ready from their match against cardiff. they got here as soon as they could, just about a narrow go ona they could, just about a narrow go on a bus taken from the airport. we saw on a bus taken from the airport. we sanamie on a bus taken from the airport. we saw jamie vardy here with wes morgan and casper ‘s michael who was particular close to the man. they we re particular close to the man. they were taken straight into the temple complex. you can see behind me. the

funeral go on for many days. the cremation itself will not be for at least close to 100 days for are there today with the daughter of thailand's and king. it is a royally sponsored event, an elite and illustrious occasion indeed. a reflection of his extraordinary business success and the status he achieved in a relatively short time. of the very good networking he had. we have seen really big cream of the great and good coming to show their respect for him. it does not have the same kind of deal as the tributes we have seen back in britain. his supporting success cannot have the same impact it has for a team like leicester and the people of that city. it is more of a formal buddhist occasion where there is not much engagement of the type

public buses that republic. republicans and democrats have begun a final burst of campaigning — ahead of tuesday's mid—term elections in the united states. president trump told supporters at rallies in montana and florida that democrats wanted to flood the country with illegal immigrants — and described how barbed wire was being erected along the border with mexico. mexico is trying, they are trying, but we are different, we have our military now on the border. cheering and applause i notice all the beautiful barbed wire going up today. barbed wire used properly can be a beautiful sight. president trump on the campaign trail for the mid—term elections. italian authorities report that 29 people have lost their lives in fierce storms that have battered the country this week. in the past 2a hours, 11 people, including nine from the same family, have died in floods on the southern italian island of sicily. katie silver reports.

it was in this house near palermo in sicily that family was all but wiped out. nine people died in the incident. from children aged one, three and 15 to their grandparents. it happened when a small river nearby burst its banks. it is not a good situation, something we never would have expected. so much rain here. on the other side of the island, firefighters recovered the bodies of a man and woman whose hire car was swept away by a flooded river. another man's body was found in hisjeep. river. another man's body was found in his jeep. while river. another man's body was found in hisjeep. while rescuers are looking for a missing doctor, who was an route to the hospital to start his shift. rescue teams evacuated many families from the

area. we cannot go into our homes, she says. someone lent me clothes. i do not even have underwear. we are devastated. i am speechless. italy is reeling after heavy rain and girls have hit large parts of the country over the last week. many have died from falling trees while a german tourist, and 87—year—old woman, was struck by lightning. near a northern city torrential rain caused a massive landslide, blocking a regional road and cutting off a number of towns and villages. in the netto, which has borne the brunt of the damage, it is believed it will cost 1 the damage, it is believed it will cost1 million euros to repair and many years for the forest to regrow. all of these regions have been hit by bad weather. from the regions in the north to sardinia in sicily, which have been the regions most

affected in the last 24—hour is. authorities in the south and north west are bracing themselves for more wild weather to come. the civil protection agency describes it as one of the most complex weather situations of the past half—century. voters in the french pacific islands of new caledonia have decided to remain part of france. an independence vote was promised three decades ago, after a violent campaign by separatists from the indigenous kanak people. if you believe the opinion polls, it is likely that new caledonia will say no to independence. it seems economic insecurities have persuaded many economic insecurities have persuaded ma ny voters economic insecurities have persuaded many voters to stick with france. paris pumps a lot of money into its strategic south pacific territory and our concern is that if the archipelago goes it alone and then

the flow of cash could impact on the way of life in this pacific paradise. it is a beautiful place but it is a place that has been scarred by ethnic tensions right since the french colonised the islands in the indigenous people, the ka na ks, islands in the indigenous people, the kanaks, have waged a separatist campaign, sometimes violently and in return now have been campaigns by the french which have further inflamed tensions over the years it is those sensitivities which have come to the fore during this vote in the south pacific. we are expecting result in the next couple of hours. save to say if it is a no vote there isa save to say if it is a no vote there is a provision under a treaty here for there to be another referendum on independence in 2020 and 2022. the issue, even if there is a no result today, is unlikely to go away. an adventurerfrom grantham has become the first person to swim almost 1800 miles around great britain.

ross edgley left margate onjune the 1st and hasn't set foot on land since — swimming for up to 12 hours a day and eating more than 500 bananas. he's been up against strong tides and currents as well as storms and jellyfish. john maguire reports. this is the moment ross edgley set a new world record and became the first person to swim around britain and set foot on dry land for the first time in more than five months. great britain is big, isn't it? you tell me. you have swum round it. yeah, it's much bigger than i thought. scotland is big. yeah. people don't realise how big that is. yeah. the highs are so high but the lows are so low. like, scotland is probably the best example, the scenery is stunning, but it's also very humbling just getting slapped in the face byjellyfish every single day. so it feels weird now to sort of be looking back and almost reflecting, because for 157 days i almost didn't allow myself to do that, so now it feels quite nice.

swimming twice a day, every day, for up to 12 hours, both day and night, he has battled storms, exhaustion and waters seething with jellyfish. 0n margate beach this morning, where he first set off injune, well wishers who had followed his progressjoined friends and family to welcome him home. absolutely immense. i mean, he is a man who has always had character and he has shown that over the last five months. this is the epitome of survival. the epitome of resilience. this is like caveman, feral instinct, dating back to... it's historic. what this man has done. and for these people to be here and support him is absolutely amazing. he's either mad or he knows what he is doing. he lived on board throughout the 2,000 mile swim, consuming more than 1 million calories to feed his endeavour. as for what's next, ross says he is keen to take on yet another swimming challenge.

it sounds so weird but i'm still not quite bored of swimming so there's a few more... since i was finishing this, there was a few more challenges that were thrown my way and people were like, if you can swim round great britain, maybe you can try this. i might be naive enough to say yes. that's after he gets his land legs back. cheering stop it. i'm going to cry! john maguire, bbc news. and he is not bored of swimming. sport and for a full round—up from the bbc sport centre, here's hugh. wayne rooney will come out of international retirement to make a final farewell appearance for his country next month. england's all—time record goalscorer, who now plays in america for dc united, is expected to play against the united states at wembley to earn his 120th cap. the game will raise funds for the wayne rooney foundation

and will be his first england appearance since a 3—0 victory over scotland two years ago. the wembley arch will be lit up in the gold colours of rooney's charity. it's a big day ahead at the top of the premier league with both manchester city and chelsea in action this afternoon. chelsea take on crystal palace in the 4 o'clock kick off, whilst manchester city are just a point behind leaders liverpool, as they go into their game at home against southampton. always when i see southampton, the players that we have, the position we have, it is not the quality of the players they have in the position normally. i am impressed with the quality i have in front, especially strong and especially in the middle. we have to be sharp and move well in small spaces and clever in set pieces because they are strong as well. that is the game, i guess. there's one game in the scottish premiership —

just a point at home to aberdeen will take kilmarnock back to third. and it's going their way so far, they lead by a goal to nil early in the second half. you can listen to the action on bbc radio scotland. johnny bairstow has been ruled out the first of england's three upcoming test matches against sri lanka, which begins on tuesday. the wicket—keeper twisted his ankle playing football in training during the one—day series, and missed the final two 50—over matches. england have not won a test series in sri lanka since 2001. it's not yet been announced who will take his place behind the stumps for the match in galle. johnny is unavailable for this first one. the decision is probably more based on long—term was giving him extra time to hopefully get right for the second test and not put him in too much doubt, you know, for the rest of the winter. looking forward to the next summer at home. meanwhile, in theirfirst home match since the ball—tampering scandal

earlier in the year, australia were heavily beaten by south africa in the first one—day international. australia were all out forjust 152, before the visitors cruised to victory by six wickets. it's the first time australia have lost seven consecutive 0dis. england's rugby league side are looking to secure a series win in around an hour's time, when they take on new zealand in the second test in liverpool. england won the first of the three tests last week. james graham will captain the side at anfield, after injury to sean 0'loughlin whilst the st helens forward luke thompson will make his first start for his country. that match live on bbc two this afternoon. they played really well last week. i

am expecting the same level of performance from both teams this weekend. sometimes it comes down to that one moment in a game and hopefully we can be on the right end of it like we were last weekend. ryan burnett was forced to surrender his wba bantamweight boxing title after sustaining a fight—ending back injury during his world boxing super series quarter—final against nonito donaire. the belfast fighter was not able to punch with his right hand during the fourth round, and retired moments later. burnett was treated in the ring before leaving the arena on a stretcher. that's all the sport for now. plenty more throughout the afternoon. time for a look at the weather.