The BBC yesterday admitted it faced a "crisis of trust" after being forced to apologise for wrongly implicating a politician in child sex abuse, just weeks after the Jimmy Savile scandal broke.

The British public broadcaster suspended all investigations by its flagship current affairs programme Newsnight after it alleged that a senior Conservative party figure repeatedly abused a teenage resident of a children's home in the 1970s.

Although the Newsnight programme did not identify the politician in last week's report, former Conservative treasurer Alistair McAlpine was widely named on social networking sites as the alleged perpetrator.

McAlpine publicly denied the claims on Friday -- and hours later his accuser, Steve Messham, a former resident of the Bryn Estyn children's home in Wales, said McAlpine was not his abuser and had been a victim of mistaken identity.

Closing Friday's edition of the programme, anchor Eddie Mair summed up the grim mood with the sign-off: "Newsnight will be back on Monday. Probably."

Entwistle admitted the damage the latest row had caused the corporation as it came on the heels of allegations that Savile, one of the BBC's top presenters before his death last year, sexually abused hundreds of children over a 40-year period.