Richard Jones has won ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.
The soldier-turned-magician has triumphed on the ITV show, beating singer Wayne Woodward to the crown.
Speaking after his win, he said: "I can’t believe it. Thank you so much to everyone who voted. I want to thank my family, I want to thank Fergus, I want to thank the Magic Circle and the whole community.
"They’ve been absolutely fantastic and everyone’s been so supportive. Thank you to everyone here and everyone at home watching. It means the world to me."
Simon Cowell’s golden buzzer act Boogie Storm placed third whilst Jasmine Elcock just missed out on a place in the top three.
Competition was tough between the 12 contestants on Saturday evening (28.05.16) and earlier in the night, Richard brought the audience to tears with a patriotic tribute to former soldier and fellow magician Fergus Ankhorn.
Alesha Dixon tearfully told him after the performance: "Oh my goodness, Richard – that was so incredible, poignant, noble, brilliantly British – I just loved everything about that."
Young singers Jasmine and Beau Dermott also amazed the audience with effortless performances of ‘True Colours’ and ‘Defying Gravity’ respectively.
Alex Magala came a surprising 9th place, whilst 100 Voices of Gospel placed only one above him in the leaderboard.
Meanwhile, some of the show’s best known contestants returned to commemorate ten years of the talent show. Curated by Diversity’s Ashley Banjo, the performance began with Jamie Raven asking fans of the show to always "expect the unexpected" and believe "anything is possible". The history of Britain was a clear theme, with Winston Churchill’s famous speech playing out to the audience. Diversity then appeared on stage, wowing the audiences once again with their energetic and faultless dance routines.
Former winners Ashley and Pudsey and George Sampson returned to team up with the dancing troupe whilst Old Men Grooving and Stavros Flatley joined them in a dance off. Collabro slowed things down with a faultless performance of ‘Stars’ from Les Miserables before they were joined on stage by all the performers where Ashley Banjo thanked the great British public for 10 incredible years of the show.
The performance clearly left hosts Ant & Dec and judges Amanda Holden, Simon, David Walliams and Alesha emotional.
Dec said: "That was just the most fantastic thing. Thank you so much for putting that together Ashley. On behalf of us and the judges and the whole show, thank you for being [part of] Britain’s Got Talent."
Whilst Ant added: "That had me in tears at the end, that was absolutely brilliant."
Magician Richard Jones wins Britain’s Got Talent
