When the producers of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! put Charlie Brooks' 7-year-old daughter behind a door in the jungle, we thought it was a bit much. And so did 66 other people, who sent in complaints to broadcast regulator Ofcom about it.
We can still remember wondering how the child would feel when her mammy failed to pick the door she was hiding behind, thus losing the opportunity to be reunited with her in the jungle, and Ofcom now says they have "serious concerns" about how the whole thing went down.
The body has given ITV a slap on the wrist, saying the broadcaster breached broadcasting codes by failing to reveal that Kiki was given support by production staff both before and after the challenge. And the regulator added that Brooks' tearful reaction to the revelation that her daughter had been behind one of the doors "served to increase the offence caused in this case".
"In our view, the appearance of a 7-year-old child placed in such a scenario would have gone beyond the likely expectations of the audience for this programme, which rather would have expected consenting adults to participate in the challenges featured on I'm a Celebrity" the regulator's report on the incident said.
ITV insisted that they had not made the decision to involve the 7-year-old without "careful consideration". They said that although Kiki was "understandably disappointed, but in no way unduly distressed" by not seeing her mother, Ofcom found "a significant level of offence" would always have been caused when involving such a young child in the show.
We're sure the fact that Charlie Brooks herself said they'd gone too far didn't exactly help. What did you make of the whole thing?
