High-scoring Seann Walsh and Katya Jones through to next week's Strictly Come Dancing as Katie Piper is voted out

Strictly Come Dancing pair Seann Walsh and Katya Jones survived being kicked off the show in the wake of their kissing controversy after the judges' scorecards helped them to avoid to a voting backlash by the public.

The duo, who were photographed in a passionate embrace outside a London pub, were forced to address the scandal on television last week on television after Walsh was dumped by his now ex-girlfriend Rebecca Humphries and accused of being a bully, which he denied.

The scandal threatened to cut short their time on the dancefloor as campaigners attempted to mobilise the public to vote off the shamed pair.

But after their pizzeria-themed Charleston earned them a combined score of 28, placing them fifth on the Strictly leaderboard, their passage into next week's show was virtually secured.

The couple only had to finish in the top nine pairs in the public vote to be safely through to next week, because the voting system on Strictly means that the judges scores and the public votes are weighted equally.

The breakdown of the public vote is not revealed by the BBC.

The broadcaster had two million more viewers tune in than last week, with a peak of 11.9 million people glued to their screens as the canoodling couple took to the dancefloor.

The show had an audience share of 51.2 per cent, making it the most-watched show across all channels on Saturday, the BBC said.

Walsh and Jones received a six from Craig Revel-Horwood, sevens from Darcy Bussell and Bruno Tonioli, while Shirley Ballas held up an eight, which led some people on social media to accuse the judges of inflating their scores to keep them in the competition.

Holly Grinter tweeted: "Completely overmarked!!! Riddled with mistakes", while Hayley Parry-Dafis wrote: "It’s just to keep them out the bottom two to keep the ratings".

Another woman added: “Kissing or no kissing, they were definitely sympathy scores from the judges."

Bookmakers' odds drifted as far out as 66/1 on Walsh and Jones taking the glitterball home after the late-night liaison, but after last night’s show they were back down to 25/1 - ahead of Graeme Swann and Dr Ranj Singh.

BBC Casualty actor Charles Venn and TV presenter Katie Piper squared off in Sunday night's dance off before Piper lost the judges vote to become the third contestant to leave the show.

Speaking afterwards, the 35-year-old, who was attacked with acid in 2008, said: “I feel quite proud of us because we have learnt the most because we were the weakest at the start. And we have had a really good time, we can go home tonight saying we did it and we ended on a high.” She added that she would like to continue dancing, saying: “It would be a shame to do nothing. I can try and do an evening class because I have learnt some stuff and if you don’t carry it on you forget it.”

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