Tipping Point viewers stunned after teacher suggests Anne Frank fictional

Tipping Point viewers were stunned after a contestant appeared to suggest that Holocaust diarist Anne Frank was a fictional character.

Game show host Ben Shephard asked teacher Steph to name the orphan sent to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps in a “classic novel by Johanna Spyri” referring to the famous children’s book Heidi.

Steph appeared unsure, debating whether pass the question over to her competitor Pete, before eventually venturing a guess: “I’m going to go with Anne Frank.”

After Shephard came to Pete for a response, Steph’s opponent delivered the correct answer, saying “I can think of Heidi.”

But after it was revealed that “Anne Frank was a real-life person of course,” Steph confessed: “I knew that, I couldn’t think of anybody else.”

The moment left viewers in shock, with the hashtag “Anne Frank” trending in the UK on Tuesday evening and online users taking to social media to express their dismay.

One Tipping Point fan wrote: “#tippingpoint So Steph is a teacher and she thinks Anne Frank is a made-up character in a book. Says a lot about the state of the education system in this country.”

Joining the chorus of disapproval, another Twitter user wrote: “teacher thinks Anne Frank is a fictional character #tippingpoint …. I just despair.”