The Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman is taking a break from Twitter after claiming on the social media site that she had been "ushered" from a mosque in London.

Newman believed she was at the Hyderi Islamic Centre in Streatham where she was expected as part of Visit My Mosque day on February 1.

In fact she was at the South London Islamic Centre nearby and after a short exchange with a man, was pointed in the direction of the Hyderi Islamic Centre.

She then tweeted her 80,000 followers that she been "ushered" out of the building, even though she was "respectfully" dressed.

Leaders at the mosque, who received death threats after the tweet, obtained CCTV footage of the incident which supported their claim that the man she spoke to had merely been giving her directions rather than ushering her anywhere.

Newman, who had been planning a positive report, went on to apologise for her "inappropriate" tweets which she said she had put out in "haste". She admitted she had been at the wrong place.

Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear wrote to the mosque's leaders offering an unreserved apology. He went to meet the imam and told him he was "disappointed" by his presenter's behaviour.

The mosque's leaders accepted her apology but said it had been among the toughest times in its history. They were saddened by her "instinctive reaction" of assuming she was being treated badly because of her gender.

Mohammed Ali, a trustee of the mosque, signed the letter which said: "The last few weeks have been some of the toughest in our small mosque's history. Never before in our 37 years of welcoming worshippers from South London have we been thrust into the national spotlight as we have this month."

He added: "If any good can possibly come out of this incident, we hope that it will remind public figures of the need to be judicious not just in the language they use, but in considering how their view of our faith is tainted by the fog of Islamophobia, which is increasingly clouding our national dialogue."

Earlier this week, US news anchor Brian Williams was suspended for six months without pay after claiming falsely and repeatedly he had been shot down in a helicopter in Iraq. He had been in the helicopter behind and conflated the incident with his own uneventful flight.