Sunday nights X Factor results show caused a storm of controversy from angry viewers, as TreyC Cohen was sent home by a majority vote after judge Cheryl Cole refused to vote when she found both of her acts in the bottom two.

TreyC Cohen found herself in the bottom two along with  Katie Waissel. They then had to compete against each other in the sing-off and whilst TreyC put in an admirable performance of Toni Braxton’s ‘Unbreak my Heart’,  Katie Waissel seemed to lose her  way during her rendition of ‘Please Don’t Give Up On Me’.

Katie’s song choice and performance bordered on desperation. Part-way through the aptly-titled song, she appeared to forget her words, exclaimed ‘sod it’ and sat on the stage as she muttered the last few lines of the begging lyrics of the song.

As the mentor of both contestants,  Cheryl Cole was faced with a difficult decision over who to send home. Normally a mentor with two acts in the sing-off is ask to vote last, but for some reason the producers decided that Cheryl should vote second after Simon Cowell had voted to save Katie Waissel.

At that point a very surprised Cheryl Cole said she would not choose between them and asked host Dermot O’Leary to return to her after the other two judges have voted and she would take the vote to deadlock.

However, this did not happen. Running out of time, O’Leary said that the majority vote from the three remaining judges would decide which hopeful would be sent home.  Dannii Minogue then voted to save TreyC Cohen, Louis Walsh’s decision to save Waissel meant that TreyC Cohen was sent home.

Later on the ITV2 show it was explained that the show’s producers said that Cheryl Cole’s refusal to vote meant they could invoke the majority vote rule. This rule was only ever used once before when Sharon Osbourne was on the panel and found herself in the same position as Cheryl.

If seem to me that the producers are very selective with the major vote rule. Only a few weeks ago Simon Cowell was in the same position as Cheryl but he was asked to vote last. Fortunately for him the other three judges voted for the same act which meant Simon did not have to cast a vote. When pressed by Dermot to reveal how he would have voted, Simon refused to answer.