ITV pulls Jekyll And Hyde over gunfight storyline after Paris attacks

The show, which has received more than 400 complaints and was deemed “too scary” by some viewers, was taken off the schedule.

It was expected that Sunday night’s episode would feature a “gunfight”, according to the Radio Times website synopsis.

The show’s creator Charlie Higson, who apologised to frightened viewers last month following an Ofcom probe into the show, tweeted: “We’ve postponed #JekyllandHyde tonight due to shocking events in Paris.”

He said to a fellow Twitter user: “We are just trying to be sensitive.”

The episode was due to be aired at 7pm, but ITV tweeted: “Tonight’s #JekyllandHyde has been postponed and will be shown at a later date. There will be a special edition of the @itvnews at 7.30pm.”

An ITV spokesman said: “Tonight’s episode of Jekyll And Hyde has been postponed in consideration of recent events in Paris.”

Last month, Ofcom said it was opening an investigation after it received 459 complaints about an episode that was deemed “too scary” by many viewers.

The episode aired on October 25 at 6.30pm, hours before the 9pm cut-off point to show adult content.

It featured a half-human half-dog creature called a Harbinger, the physical transformation of saintly Jekyll into evil Hyde, and the brutal murder of a couple in Ceylon.

It also showed a violent bar fight and a punch-up in an alleyway.

Higson defended the show, saying ITV put out a warning about the violent scenes.

A spokesman for the broadcast watchdog said last month: “Ofcom has carefully assessed a number of complaints about Jekyll And Hyde on ITV.

“We are opening an investigation into whether the programme complied with our rules on appropriate scheduling and violent content before the watershed.”

At the time, Higson, who wrote half of the series, told Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 6: ”I’m sorry that anyone got upset by it. It wasn’t my intention to upset people by it. Obviously, it was my intention for it to be scary – it’s a scary show.

“I was expecting more people to complain that it wasn’t scary enough, rather than people saying, ‘This is a scary show and I found it scary’. You think, well that’s slightly the point. It’ll be like writing The Fast Show and someone writing in saying it is quite funny.”