Strictly Come Dancing: Research finds that public voters tend to disagree with the judges' verdicts over half of the time

This year's Strictly stars (BBC / Ray Burmiston)

THE Strictly Come Dancing judges may be on the show to lend their professional opinion and critique, but new research reveals that the public disagree with the experts over half of the time.

A study found that just 42% of public votes between the 2014-2016 series saw the celebrity with the lowest judges score leave the competition that week.

In over half of cases (53%), the lowest rated couple did not even end up in the dreaded dance-off once the public had had their say.

Strictly judges Craig Revel-Horwood, Darcey Bussell, Shirley Ballas and Bruno Tonioli (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

The research from Bookie-Bonus-Code.co.uk looked at every elimination over the last three series, finding that the pairing that gets eliminated each week scores an average of seven points more than the lowest scoring couple and are ranked by the experts as the second worst dancers that weekend.

Week three of the competition has the biggest discrepancy between the public and judging panel – the eliminated celebrity is usually ranked 11^th out of the 14 dancers by the judges, meaning three others should have left before them.

The only stage of the competition where the judges and public seem to be in agreement is week 10. As was the case last weekend with Susan Calman’s week 10 exit, the celebrity with the lowest judges score has ‘correctly’ bowed out on each occasion.

However, if a couple is rated as the fourth worst dancer by the judges, they should be worried. This is the most popular position for a couple that is included in – but survives – a dance-off.

With judges only voting to save the lowest scoring couple on 6% of occasions, if a couple is up against the bottom act, they should be safe.