The BBC has been accused of “fake news” after it tweeted an account of President Trump threatening war in Iran because a reporter misheard the word “more”.

The BBC’s world news Twitter account informed its 24 million followers that the President had told the UN General Assembly that “war will follow” his decision to re-impose sanctions in the country.

In fact, Pres Trump had said “more will follow”, with the member of staff behind the Twitter account being deluged with responses pointing out the error.

The tweet was not deleted for around 20 hours, as the BBC used the hashtag “#ourbad” to admit its mistake.

“It looks like we misheard the President,” it told one tweeter. “It was our bad and we've issued a clarification.”

In a second post, it wrote: “We've issued a clarification: @realDonaldTrump's actual words appear to be "more will follow". #ourbad”