Dancing on Ice judge comes under fire for 'faecal matter' comments

Gardiner described the former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies as "like watching faecal matter that won't flush" following her performance on last Sunday's show, which was broadcast between 6:15pm and 8:30pm and was watched by 7.9 million viewers.

According to reports, ITV has received more than 1,500 complaints regarding Gardiner's comments, with Ofcom confirming that it is also assessing the situation having taken "several hundred" complaints as well.

Both ITV and Gardiner apologised yesterday for the comments made. The show's host Philip Schofield issued an apology on This Morning, while Gardiner said: "I was critiquing the performance of Sharron Davies and made some comments which may have caused offence to her and the viewers. For this I'm sorry and would like to apologise."

However a number of fans on social network sites are still calling for Gardiner to be axed from the show, with both Gardiner and Davies being named among the top 10 most Tweeted about subjects on Twitter.