Carole Cadwalladr has been covering the biggest pro-leave donor for nearly two years. As each revelation sparks a new investigation, Arron Banks rubbishes her journalism. But those investigations are beginning to bite. Also today: Eva Wiseman on our obsession with true crime

It’s been more than a year since the Guardian and Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr started investigating Arron Banks and his unofficial Brexit campaign Leave.Eu. She tells Anushka Asthana how each new story brought with it a hail of criticism and ridicule.

But now the National Crime Agency has said it is investigating Banks amid concerns that he was “not the true source” of £8m in funding to the Leave.EU campaign.



This week, Banks’s insurance company, as well as his Leave.EU campaign group, faced fines of £135,000 for breaches of data laws.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that the US special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, is looking at records of Banks’s communications with Russian diplomats.



Cadwalladr is continuing to investigate Banks and the “smoking guns” he ridiculed in an initial interview in a pub in north London back in the spring of 2017.

Also today: the Observer columnist Eva Wiseman on why she is rethinking her obsession with true crime podcasts and the role of the victim in this booming form of grisly entertainment.