ITV HAS BEEN forced to apologise to viewers after a media watchdog raised complaints about an ‘offensive’ shopping list that included “inappropriate” items was briefly shown on screen.

Last Friday’s episode showed a blackboard in Marlon Dingle’s kitchen with the household shopping list – which included, among items such as apples, rice and eggs, ‘pile cream’ and ‘jam rags’.

The former refers to a treatment ointment for haemorrhoids, while the latter is a slang term for sanitary towels.

Mediawatch, an independent lobby group promoting family values in the media, have criticised the ‘immature’ gag.

Its director Vivienne Pattison said: “Clearly whoever wrote that knew exactly what they were doing, and they certainly didn’t need to. It’s not a particularly helpful phrase to refer to sanitary towels as ‘jam rags’, and it is unnecessary.”

ITV later published a statement saying: “A shopping list featured in the background of a scene on Friday’s episode of Emmerdale which included colloquial terms that some viewers considered inappropriate.

“We are looking into the matter and we apologise to any viewers if they were offended.”

However, Britain’s official media watchdog, Ofcom, said it hadn’t received any complaints about the scene.