Dance troupe hit out at Cowell's 'Talent'

A girls' dance troupe has hit out at Simon Cowell for the way they were treated at a Britain's Got Talent audition.

The girls, from the Liverpool Renaissance Academy of Performing Arts, danced at an audition in Blackpool but were sent home after Cowell told them that their costumes were "tacky".

The troupe then spent £5,000 on new outfits and travelled to the London auditions, but they were rejected without being given another chance to perform.

Manager Kim Murray told the Daily Star Sunday: "Simon and the judges came on the balcony and said, 'We've run out of time but we've made our decision... you are all going home'. They had waited seven hours for nothing. It was heartbreaking."

A spokeswoman for the show insisted that the girls had never been told that they could perform again. "They just needed to turn up to hear the judges' verdict," she said.

However, Kim hit back: "We were never told we weren't going to perform again."

The ITV1 show has also been criticised for the way it treated a group of pensioners at auditions in Cardiff.