POP band Scooch has dismissed suggestions that it cheated to become the British entry in the Eurovision Song Contest as "a complete joke".

Parkstone-based singer Russ Spencer described claims that the band had "secret" vocalists off stage and mimed their song Flying the Flag (For You) in front of millions of viewers on Saturday night's Making Your Mind Up TV programme as "utterly ridiculous".

Russ, 28, was speaking after the allegations were emblazoned across the front of yesterday's Daily Mirror newspaper.

"It's a complete non-story," he insisted. "We had a couple of backing singers doing harmony vocals who weren't dressed for the cameras. But they weren't hidden offstage and we certainly didn't mime.

"We stuck entirely to the rules and won the contest fair and square."

He added that strict BBC regulations allowed all acts to have up to six people.

"Some, like Justin Hawkins (the former Darkness singer), chose to make a feature of them and dressed them up as Beefeaters.

"We decided to keep them in the background. There was no secrecy and it really isn't a big deal."

Russ refused to get drawn into the newspaper's claims that Hawkins and fellow contestant former East 17 singer Brian Harvey had complained about Scooch's use of "ghost" singers.

"I'm not going to start slagging off other contestants because of something that's appeared in a newspaper, particularly when I don't know what was actually said. All I do know is that they were very nice on the evening, full of congratulations," he said.

Taking the tack that there's no such thing as bad publicity, Russ added that Scooch is delighted to have made profile-boosting banner headlines in one of Britain's best-selling newspapers.

"It's our first front page," he said.

The band is busy pushing its Eurovision single with a round of TV and radio appearances and the news that Flying The Flag (For You) is now available for download on iTunes.