CRUEL Big Brother made the housemates suffer behind the scenes by starving them, locking them out and setting housemates up against each other, claims the show's fifth runner-up Carole Vincent.

The 53-year-old anti-war campaigner said she nearly drowned when Big Brother ordered the housemates to swim in their sack-like guru robes for a fitness task, after forcing them to sit outside in the rain while wearing their wet clothes.

"When I dived into the pool the water was filling up the material and I physically couldn't move. I was trying to get up for air and it was actually pulling me down. In the end I pushed my way up as Ziggy was taking his stuff off to get in and save me.

"I composed myself and got my breath, but as I got up I became quite light-headed and dizzy and as I fell back they went to grab me."

The housemates were frequently locked in certain areas of the house indefinitely and Big Brother would make some rooms hot and other rooms cold, claims Carole, but starving was one of the most difficult things they had to cope with.

Although Carole is pleased to have lost three stone and cured her night-eating syndrome, she said: "I didn't think they would leave people without food, and for several days, we were eating slop, an oats based nutritional thing, in a small paint tin with the minimum amount of calories for each of us - I had about a quarter of a tin and the twins had even less."

After several hungry weeks the housemates finally passed a task and won a luxury shopping budget, but it was all taken away when Carole was accused of hiding the biscuits.

"I never hid the biscuits," she said.

"I found them behind my bed when I was clearing stuff out, and when they were all starving I thought, if they were my kids I would not let them suffer like this when there is a packet of biscuits there, so I gave them the biscuits and thought, if I get evicted, I really don't care."

Conspiracy theorist Carole believes Big Brother was trying to turn the other housemates against her.

"We gelled really well as a group and that was difficult for them as programme makers," she said.