British Torchwood viewers won’t see a raunchy gay sex scene because BBC bosses thought it was too explicit.

The scene, with gay star John Barrowman’s character Captain Jack Harkness and a barman, has already been broadcast in the US on cable channel Starz.

The Sun reports that a source said executives felt the scenes were simply too sexy to show primetime audiences 20 minutes after the watershed.

The source said: “It wasn’t that it was a gay scene that worried people, but just the fact it was such an explicit sex scene, full stop.

“You can get away with scenes like that on American cable channels, but you can’t on primetime BBC1.”

A BBC spokeswoman told the newspaper that the gay sex scene and another which involved violence had been cut.

She said: “The UK and US versions of ‘Torchwood’ are slightly different. However, these differences do not change the story in any way and the strong storylines are first and foremost to the series.”

Last month, Barrowman promised Torchwood fans that the new series would be the sexiest yet, with “man sex” and “full-on” nudity.