X Factor host Dermot O'Leary has explained why this weekend's X Factor vote did not go to deadlock, as seemed to be expected.

Judge Cheryl Cole initially refused to vote between bottom two acts Katie Waissel and Treyc Cohen, as she had mentored them both.

But she asked O'Leary to "come back to her" after the other judges had voted and she would take the decision to a deadlock. This would have meant the public vote would have decided the outcome.

Instead, Cole was not asked to vote again and Treyc was evicted on the votes of the remaining three judges.

O'Leary explained that a precedent had already been set that if a judge refuses to vote between their own acts the decision would go to the other three, and that Cheryl was not able to change the rules by voting after the other judges.

"Judges can't work like that because you can't preordain how the other judges are going to vote," he said. "It kind of makes a mockery of both Louis and Dannii's vote."