A scene in BBC One soap EastEnders featuring Phil Mitchell beating his nephew Jamie has been criticised as too realistic by TV watchdogs.

The scene shows Mitchell handing out a vicious beating to Jamie for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of Mitchell's ex-girlfriend and daughter.

It provoked 31 complaints from viewers upset at the level of violence.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission upheld the complaints, saying the scenes were too strong for a programme shown before the 9pm watershed.

Complaints against Tipping The Velvet were not upheld

It found that "the level of menace and violence shown in this episode and its repeat had exceeded that acceptable for a soap attracting a wide range of viewers and broadcast pre-watershed".

The episode, which was screened last October, also showed Phil confronting Jamie's girlfriend, Sonia Jackson, over the disappearance of Lisa Fowler.

A BBC spokesman described the attack as "relatively brief and inexplicit" but said the EastEnders team would take the viewers' reactions into account when planning future episodes.

On-air rant

The commission also upheld a complaint against DJ Chris Moyles over an on-air rant about Pop Idol judge and radio rival Neil Fox.

The Radio 1 star threatened to "tear his head off and use it as a football" after Fox offered to take Moyles on in a celebrity boxing match.

According to the commission his comments "went beyond fair criticism and became personal abuse".

The commission did not uphold 35 complaints against the lesbian sex scenes in BBC drama Tipping The Velvet.

It ruled that viewers would have known what to expect because of the publicity surrounding the programme.