http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The X Factor judge Louis Walsh has dismissed suggestions that contestant Rhydian Roberts was unfairly beaten in Saturday's final, saying that surprise victor Leon Jackson "won by about 10% of the total vote".

Walsh told MediaGuardian.co.uk he felt that Leon, a Scot, won "fair and square" over his Welsh rival Rhydian and tipped the public vote in his favour with his emotional appeal to the audience during Saturday's final.

"Rhydian is a better singer, there's no doubt about that in my mind, but Leon's last [video clip] when he made an emotional plea to the public probably pipped it for him," he added.

"He spoke about doing it for his mum and having a better life and it seemed very genuine and I think the public responded to that. He seemed absolutely sincere," Walsh said.

"As far as I am aware, of the 7 million plus people who voted, Leon won by a margin of around 10% which is pretty clear as far as I'm concerned."

The number of complaints to Ofcom from disgruntled viewers who felt they were unable to vote for Rhydian during Saturday's final rocketed from 80 yesterday to more than 1,100 by 4pm today.

An ITV spokeswoman confirmed that Leon won by a 10% margin, insisting that the broadcaster was happy to take the unusual step of revealing the figure to demonstrate the absence of "bias" on the night of The X Factor final.

The spokeswoman said that the margin was 1% when the voting was between Leon, Rhydian and the English duo Same Difference early during Saturday's The X Factor final, but increased to 10% by the time the final vote closed.

"We know there are many Rhydian fans who are disappointed that he did not win, but the simple fact is that Leon won The X Factor fair and square," ITV added in a statement.

"Rhydian and Leon were both very strong finalists, so it is not surprising that they both had avid fanbases and that people voted in their millions. However, Leon performed strongly across the series and was the outright winner on the night by a full 10% of the vote."

In his emotional final interview before voting closed on Saturday night's ITV1 final, Leon told viewers that he hoped to win to give his mother, a single mum who lives on a council estate, a "better life".

Leon also impressed on the night by performing a duet with Australian star Kylie Minogue.

Asked if he felt that voting was divided into Welsh and Scottish voters, Walsh said: "I think that is how people vote in these situations."

He added that he was pleased with the vote for Leon because "Rhydian is going to have a massive career anyway".

ITV said: "A tiny number of mobile customers did experience problems getting through because of high call volumes but there were no other reported faults on the lines and viewers can be reassured that this would absolutely not have affected the outcome of the show.

"As all numbers go through to the same lines and vote platform it is impossible for there to be any bias in favour of or against a particular contestant."

An Ofcom spokeswoman today confirmed the 1,100 complaints figure, which is expected to rise further, adding that the regulator would look into the issues. She declined to give a timetable for the investigation into The X Factor.

I think Rhydian can sing much better than Leon.

^^ Me too, vocal, Rydian beats Leon everytime for me.

I think if they had told us the final voting percentages after the show then all the complaints to Ofcom wouldn't have happened. The biggest reason why the Rhydian fans thought could get something out of all these complaints is that they thought the margin between the two finalist was about 1%. With the margin being as big as 10% they don't stand a chance of getting anywhere accept showing themselves to be bad losers.

After SD were eliminated I specifically remember Dermot saying there was only 1% between Leon and Rhydian. How could this suddenly increase to 10% in a few minutes with so many people trying to vote?

The Leon voters got on the phone and started voting like mad and carried on despite getting the engaged message. Scotland is bigger than Wales and it seems they are not acting like sore losers.

I bet Rhydian voters in Wales were just as determined to vote as Leon's Scottish supporters. Scotland is not that that much bigger in population terms than Wales, and if you assume England and Ireland were split 50/50 and all the voting problems that both sides had, then the sudden jump in Leon's favour seems very questionable.

The population of Wales in 2001 was: 2,903,085 (source)

while the population of Scotland in 2001: 5,062,011(source)

Nationally that gives the Scots the advantage!

There's more people in England though so if it was down to nation-based voting wouldn't Same Difference have won?

A 10% victory would mean that Leon got about a million more votes than Rhydian in the space of a few minutes. How come so many Leon voters were able to get through so quickly, while Rhydian's lines were constantly jammed? There's not that many more people in Scotland, and if there was Leon's lines would have crashed with such a sudden influx of votes. There couldn't have been that much of a turnaround so quickly

The Leon voters had the same problem as the Rhydian voters. A respected member on here was complaining about it before Leon was announced the winner.

The difference is Leon won the show and so the Leon supporters don't feel cheated. Hence why they are not complaining to Ofcom. I think they should just so Ofcom knows the problem wasn't only with the Rhydian phone lines and that Leon supporters got the engaged tone too.

The thing is this all started on a Rhydian supporters site like, a bit like this but dedicated to one subject. These people felt really cheated and the press found the site and thought it would make a good story. Now everyone and his dog that voted for Rhydian is going on the web and complaining that they had the same problem hoping they can effectively over turn the telephone vote. The exponential rise in complaints is the same sort of thing we saw with the "Jade Gobby and her lap dogs" bulling affair in CBB5. Lets hope it doesn't have the same result and take the X Factor off the air next year.

Dermot specifically said that the difference was 1%, for that to be bumped up to 10% is frankly not believable. That means that the people of Scotland went crazy in order bring Leon victory. If thats true then that just as sad as the sour grapes being displayed by the people of Wales.

Don't forget Dermot said the about the 1% just after announcing that Same Difference had been voted off third so the Same Difference fans could have voted to Leon and boasted his percentage of the vote. Also people that thought Rhydian was going to win but were inclined to Leon but didn't want to waste their money voting for him on hearing there was on 1% difference started to vote also boasting his number of votes.

Whichever way you look at it,. it looks like out of every 12 to 15 people who voted, all but one of them voted for Leon. Given the fact that so many Fhydian fans now claim they couldn't get through the whole thing does start to look suspicious.