'I was a Strictly pro and Pete Wicks definitely deserves to be in the semi final'

Strictly Come Dancing fans expressed outrage after Pete Wicks went straight through to the semi final on Sunday night, avoiding a dance-off yet again - despite making a blunder during his quarter final routine.

But one Strictly professional says he deserves his place in the semi final this weekend. Last Sunday's surprise results show saw Tasha Ghouri in the dance-off, despite topping the leaderboard most weeks, alongside Montell Douglas and it was the Olympian who was latest to leave the BBC series after the judges cast their votes.

The exit saw viewers rush to social media to air their frustrations, labelling it a 'fix'. One said: "What a joke! Pete should not be in the semi final! The producers and judges knew how to fix the leaderboard to get Tasha in the bottom 2 so that she can knock out Montell...cos she will probably be in the bottom as well #Strictly," while another commented: "I don't even watch but how does Pete keep getting through? over montell and tash? #strictly."

But now former Strictly professional dancer Ola Jordan has spoken out on the matter and says ex-TOWIE star Pete deserves his place in the final with partner Jowita Pryzystal.

Ola, who appeared on Strictly for nine years until she left in 2015, doesn't believe the public have gone "too far" in keeping him in the show week after week.

She said: "They vote for who they want to vote for, and if he's getting a lot of fans voting for him, then he deserves to be there. He's improving. And I know he's messed up; he's done so badly this week.

"But I think it does get to the point where the audience gets bored of that, and eventually, they want change. But if they do, they do. And fair play to him; he's improving and he's definitely working hard. You can tell his posture has improved and overall, his dancing has improved."

Elsewhere in the chat with Mecca Bingo Ola also spoke out about the scoring system, which sees the judges score the dancers and the public vote for their favourites. The scores are then combined and the bottom two go head-to-head in the dance-off before the judges vote who to send home.

She said: “It's a TV show, at the end of the day. As long as the judges get the leaderboard right, then it doesn't matter what the result is. Sometimes, when the leaderboard isn't right, that's when it's tricky. It's not just the public vote; it's combined with the leaderboard."

Ola wasn't surprised to see Montell leave at the weekend saying: "I predicted she would be in the bottom two again with one of the others, and we didn't know who else would get the least public votes.

“The thing with Pete and Chris (McCausland) is, they're both non-dancers and the public loves them. You can't argue with that. This is what the public loves; this is what Strictly is about. If they are being voted for, they deserve to be there, and they shouldn't be getting a hard time from people because, at the end of the day, this isn't just a proper ballroom competition.

“Maybe the producers need to look at that and realise that's what people want to see. People want to see the non-dancers, especially since Pete, though at the bottom of the leader board, has still improved a lot from day one."

When asked who she thinks will lift the glitterball trophy, Ola added: "Well, I think JB (Gill) is doing so well with Lauren (Oakley) at the moment that he's become one of the contenders for me, which I didn't expect when I saw him the first few weeks.

“Also, Tasha, she's amazing, but as you can see now, she's been in the bottom two, so she's obviously not getting the most votes, that might go against her in the final because she was bottom of the leader board, so she's obviously getting fewer votes than Sarah (Hadland) since she was at the same points as Sarah. She's getting fewer votes than Chris, and fewer than Pete. So, is she going to win now? I don't know. But I definitely think she should be in the final.”

Strictly Come Dancing is on BBC One and BBC iPlayer