LONDON: The Iranian state-owned TV station accused of peddling lies about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the jailed British mother, is operating from a former car factory in west London, the Sunday Times reported.

The UK office of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) is headed by a British resident, while other former staff members have settled in the UK after moving from Tehran.

The UK’s acceptance of these journalists contrasts with Iran’s hostility towards BBC staff and its incarceration of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker, whom IRIB has accused of being a British spy, a claim that Britain denies, the newspaper reported.

The station which has close ties with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has broadcast “distortions” and “elaborate lies” about the charity worker’s case, the Sunday Times said.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization, is serving a five-year jail sentence following her conviction of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment.

She was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport, as she was about to return to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit.

Her family and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have both denied the charges against her.