Ofcom has censured ITV for editing a programme to make it appear that a turtle was being roasted alive by Bear Grylls, the “survivalist”.

ITV breached broadcasting rules during a family show by showing Grylls apparently biting the head off a live frog and cooking a turtle in its shell on an open fire.

Edited clips from the former SAS soldier’s Channel 4 show, Born Survivor, were included in the ITV1 satirical show, Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

Viewers raised concerns about the animals’ welfare, and several parents complained that their children had been upset by the scenes.

Harry Hill’s producers said that some viewers “did seem to believe that the turtle had been ‘cooked alive’, which was of course not the case; however, unlike the programme makers of Born Survivor, we did not show the killing of this poor animal, which may have led to this confusion”.

The producers argued that the scenes were no more upsetting than those in other ITV1 programmes shown in that time-slot, such as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ofcom rejected that argument and ruled that the clips were inappropriately scheduled. ITV compounded the offence by “editing the clips so that viewers were not aware that the turtle had been killed before being cooked”.

Grylls’s programme was named during the recent scandals over television fakery. The adventurer sometimes stayed in motels while making a series about surviving in extreme conditions.

Also, a colleague dressed up in a wild bear costume for a scene meant to show a narrow escape from a grizzly bear. In Man Vs Wild, which was broadcast on the Discovery channel, a dark black shape is seen in the camp a few feet from Grylls. The channel admitted at the weekend that the bear outfit was hired and worn by a fellow crew member as a “prank”.

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