London's Mayor has five children

The vote in the mayoral elections takes place on 1 May

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has dismissed claims that revelations that he has five children by three different women will affect his mayoral campaign.

Talking to BBC London, he insisted voters had never taken an interest in his private life.

As well as two young children by his partner Emma Beale, he has two older daughters by one woman and a boy with another.

But Mr Livingstone conceded the issue would be used to attack him.

The revelation comes a month before he faces the capital's voters in seeking re-election.

Responding to a question that some people might be shocked by the revelation, he said: "Clearly, I don't think anybody in this city is shocked about what consenting adults do.

No one has ever found anything in my private life that was illegal or immoral Ken Livingstone

"As long as you don't involve children, animals and vegetables they leave people to get on and live their own life in their own way."

He added: "If I had secrets that my family or my close friends didn't know about then that would be a different matter.

"But there's a difference between private and secret and I think the media's got to understand that."

Mr Livingstone said journalists had been "looking into my private life for 40 years".

"We've had occasions where they have broken into my bank account which is a criminal offence.

"No one has ever found anything in my private life that was illegal or immoral."

He said that as a councillor, MP and mayor he had "canvassed tens of thousands of people".

"On occasion people ask how the kids are and on a one-to-one I'm happy to talk about that but with the media I'm not.

"My private life isn't my sole property. It's been shared with other people and they expect it to stay private and it's going to stay private."