Talk show host Trisha Goddard's daytime show has been reprimanded by regulators for revealing paternity test results on air - straight after children's programmes.

The Independent Television Commission ruled that two of the shows, entitled Trisha Exposes ... Britain's Biggest Love Rats, breached its code of conduct.

The shows, screened at 1700 BST, featured guests revealing the results of paternity tests live on air with the audience chanting "who's the daddy?"

They prompted 38 complaints from viewers who thought the shows, made by Anglia Television, were in poor taste.

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Announcements before the show were designed to alert viewers that children's ITV programmes had finished.

But the ITC said that merely making an announcement did not permit a move into adult topics, particularly as many youngsters would have been watching unsupervised.

In ruling its code had been broken, the commission said: "The programmes were, at times, confrontational and aggressive, and a number of them were at the limit of acceptability."

'Serious misjudgement'

It concluded that it was "an unsuitable approach to dealing with sensitive issues of paternity testing at a time when large numbers of children may be expected to be watching".

The ITC added that the screening was "a serious misjudgement".

The talk show featured men who had doubted they had fathered children, receiving the results of DNA tests in front of the studio audience.

The children themselves were not in the studio but were often shown on screen.

Complaints were upheld by the ITC against Channel 4 and E4 about bad language before the 2100 BST watershed during Big Brother.

However it dismissed complaints about a racist joke told during the series and broadcast late at night, saying: "The reactions of the other housemates to such a 'joke' demonstrated that such humour is unacceptable".