Cheryl: "I won't pick one of them. I refuse."

It was left to judges Louis Walsh, Simon Cowell and Dannii Minogue to decide who was sent home on Sunday nights X Factor show after mentor Cheryl Cole refused to vote.

After all other acts were put through to next week’s show; TreyC Cohen and Katie Waissel were in the bottom two and had to compete in the sing-off.

"I won't choose between them. I refuse."

While TreyC’s rendition of Toni Braxton’s ‘Unbreak my heart’ was a commendable performance, Katie appeared to lose composure during her performance of ‘Please don’t give up on me’, by forgetting her words and exclaiming ‘sod it’ half way through the song.

Ultimately Cheryl Cole, mentor to both acts, was faced with a tough decision as to who should be sent home. Cowell voted first to keep Waissel in the competition, Cole then asked host Dermot O’Leary to come back to her after the other judges had voted, so that the vote could go to ‘deadlock’, however it was decided that the votes from the remaining three judges would decide which act would be going home, resulting in TreyC leaving the competition.

Dannii Minogue backed fellow judge, Cole’s decision saying “to tell you the truth, I probably would have done the same. It’s very hard to invest yourself in your category and then pit them against each other”.

ITV has received over 1,000 complaints from angry viewers who say that this constitutes a change in rules, going as far as to suggest that TV Watchdog Ofcom investigate these allegations.