THE BBC has refused to apologise in a row over a Tweet by presenter Laura Kuenssberg.

The broadcaster defended its political editor after her tweet in which she drew attention to the father who confronted Boris Johnson about the state of the NHS.

Omar Salem challenged the PM in Whipps Cross University Hospital, saying his seven-day-old daughter had “nearly died” due to a lack of staff.

Kuenssberg used her Twitter to point out that Salem was a Labour activist and retweeting one of his posts, said “This is him here”.

With her account having 1.1 million followers, she was accused of sparking a pile-on targeted at the father.

Yesterday, a day after the incident, the BBC issued a statement on Twitter using the Notes app on an iPhone.

The broadcaster said: “Laura is a journalist who uses social media as part of her job.

“Like many others, Laura quote tweeted a thread by Omar Salem, who had written himself about his encounter with the PM on social media and described himself as a labour [sic] activist.

“Any suggestion there was malicious intent behind her tweets are [sic] absurd.”