Supernerd Eugene Sully lived to see another day in the Big Brother house after surviving a surprise eviction last night.

Hairdresser Craig Coates, 20, from Norfolk, was booted out instead after being the housemate with the least number of public votes.

Eugene, 27, from Pound Hill, Crawley, and three other housemates remain in the BB house until tomorrow's grand finale.

It was a night of good fortune for the engineer, a failed Labour candidate in the recent West Sussex County County elections.

After the eviction, Big Brother asked one housemate to go to the diary room and when he volunteered he was given a dilemma.

Big Brother told Eugene he could take £50,000 of the £100,000 prize pot if he wanted it. After deliberating for a minute, he accepted and later told housemates: "It probably wasn't morally the right thing to do. I'm sorry to whoever wins."

What he didn't know was that the prize fund would have doubled to £200,000 if he had declined.

Before last night, bookmakers Paddy Power had Eugene as favourite to win with odds of 8/13 and a spokesman said: "Eugene is making a late run for the money. But there's a long way to go yet."