I sincerely hope that BBC lawyers will refer him to “Arkell v. Pressdram” response.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye

“Arkell v. Pressdram” denotes a robust response to a claim of defamation – specifically, “fuck off”.

Private Eye had covered the case of a Mr J. Arkell, whom the Eye accused of receiving kickbacks from a debt collection agency in his role as retail credit manager at Granada Group.[8][9] The plaintiff’s lawyers wrote a letter which concluded “His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply.” The magazine’s response was, in full, “We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.”