TAGGART VIOLENCE PROBABLY NOT REAL, SAYS ITV

ITV has defended screening violent Scottish police drama Taggart during the afternoon insisting the gruesome scenes probably involved acting.

What did he say?

A spokesman for the broadcaster said they were sent the tapes from Glasgow and put them on in good faith believing the show to be a drama.

However, he added: "When you look at it, if it is acting, it's very good acting indeed.

"Look at this one. We've got an incoherent drunk being attacked by another incoherent drunk who earlier appeared to be his best friend but is now beating him repeatedly with a deep fried black brick.

"Here we see a young man being knocked to the ground with a spade by his sister, beaten around the head, and then forced to set fire to himself with the methylated spirits he had purchased to drink with supper."

He continued: "Actually, yeah, I can see why people might think it's a documentary."

Wayne Hayes, a salesman from Essex, said he was convinced he had been watching a history programme about brutal repression in the former Eastern bloc.

He said: "The unhealthy faces, the drunkenness and the violence, I thought it was Romania under the Ceaucescus."

He added: "I did phone up to complain, not about the violence but the lack of subtitles."

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