Diana Beard had quit the Great British Bake Off following the now infamous 'baked Alaska' incident shown on last night's show (August 27, 2014). However, the BBC said her departure was down to illness and was unrelated to Iain Watters' controversial elimination from the show.

Paul HollywoodPaul Hollywood was not impressed with Iain's non-existent baked alaska

Twitter erupted into a huge pudding of indignity after Watters threw his baked Alaska into the bin because it had not frozen - subsequently being given his marching orders by Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry. The problem being that rival baker Diana took the ice cream out of the freezer and left it on her workspace. Viewers were furious with the situation and the BBC received 556 complaints.

More: The Great British Bake Off: The Case of a Baked Alaska Sabotage?

Bake-off presenter Sue Perkins attempted to quell the disquiet and told Twitter users that Iain's dessert was taken out of the freezer for only 40 seconds, i.e, not enough time for it to become the sloppy mess that went in the bin.  

Diana herself went on her local radio station on Thursday morning to defend herself from accusations of sabotage.

"We were 12 amateur bakers, no prize money involved. Why would I want to sabotage Iain's Baked Alaska?" she said, "Iain does not hold me responsible for his failed ice cream..I've been stitched up, haven't I?"

British Bake OffDiana Beard [far left] has now left the competition

However, unbeknownst to listeners, Diana had already left the competition some time ago. The most recent episode was filmed in the Spring and a BBC spokesman said Diana had fallen ill on the eve of the next instalment and decided to pull out. 

"The night before episode five, Diana made a decision not to come back. This is not connected in any way to what happened in episode four," the spokesman said.

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The BBC had previously defended Diana, saying, "As shown in the episode, Iain became the fourth baker to leave the tent because he didn't present Mary and Paul with anything to judge in the show-stopper challenge and both judges were very clear about the reasoning behind the decision.

"Due to the extreme temperature in the tent that day, many of the bakers struggled to get their ice cream to set as seen in the episode. Diana removing Iain's ice cream from the freezer for less than a minute was in no way responsible for Iain's departure."