BIG Brother's steamy scenes are encouraging young people to "play Russian Roulette" with sex, a top health boss said today.

The attack came as figures show rates of of HIV and sexually-transmitted infections are rocketing across the region.

Macclesfield's Stuart Wilson, 20, and his girlfriend Michelle Bass, 23, hit the headlines after becoming the first couple to apparently have sex on the British version of Big Brother.

The north west director for public health, Professor John Ashton, said producers were "putting viewing figures before social responsibility".

During last week's Big Brother, Stuart, a former pupil of King's School in Macclesfield and a psychology student at Leeds University, and Michelle, from Newcastle, crept into a makeshift tent under a table, where it was widely believed they had sex.

But a spokesman for Big Brother said: "We do not know what they were doing under the table. It has been implied they were having sex, but we have not seen anything or broadcast anything which would prove what they did or that sex took place.

"Housemates are allowed to take condoms into the house and they can ask Big Brother if they want condoms. I don't know if Michelle or Stuart had any but Jason brought some into the house. They are both over 20, so they are both adults capable of making an informed decision."

Prof Ashton said: "The impression is given that two people, who know little or nothing about each other's history, are having sex under a table.

"No consideration is given to the risks. There's no mention of safe sex or condoms and no obvious signs producers did anything to stop it or to counsel the couple on the dangers. Not only is this a new low in British television history, but it sends out a signal that casual sex with a comparative stranger, with no regard to the risks, is okay.

"If Michelle should become pregnant or if either one of the couple should pick up a sexually-transmitted infection, then the producers are culpable, in my view.

"They have put viewing figures above social responsibility and they deserve to be held to account for it.

"Programme makers, whether for film or television, need to be more responsible about how they portray sex."

Prof Ashton said film makers and TV producers should ditch the "James Bond" image of sex on the screen and take a more responsible attitude.

He said if James Bond were a real person he would have almost certainly been HIV positive and was more at risk from careless sex than he was from arch enemy Blofeld.

He said: "We keep hammering home the safer sex message and warning young people that unprotected sex with a new partner is a lottery, with more losers than winners, yet on film and television people jump into bed together with no reference to condoms or any other form of protection - and there are no consequences. It's a nonsense.

Earlier this month the North West Health Protection Agency revealed 80 people a day in the region are contracting a sexually-transmitted infection. In Greater Manchester alone, 12,809 people needed treatment last year for infections including syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia.

New national figures out today show an increase in sexually-transmitted infections across the country, with syphilis up from 2002-3 by 28 per cent, chlamydia up by nine per cent, and the numbers being diagnosed with an infection up by four per cent.

Is health chief John Ashton right to speak out?