The Cambridge Evening News has been cleared of any wrongdoing after it was accused of failing to protect a confidential source.

The complaint centred on a series of e-mails sent to the paper's editor, Murray Morse, from Bromley man John Foster, which formed the basis for an article in the paper.

John claimed that the e-mails were confidential, and that while the newspaper could have used some of the factual information in them, it should not have revealed his identity as the source of the material.

He told the Press Complaints Commission that by doing so, the paper had breached Clauses 3 (Privacy) and 14 (Confidential sources).

He also said the article, headlined "Ultimate act of betrayal", was inaccurate and intrusive at a time of personal grief and shock in breach of Clauses 1 (Accuracy) and 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock).

The press watchdog considered each point separately but found no breach of the Editors' Code of Practice.

The article in question revealed the details of the e-mail exchange - about the stabbing of the complainant's mistress, Julie Simpson, by his wife, Alethea Foster.

In it, the complainant discussed the coverage of the case, including the possibility of the sale of photographs or the story of Julie to the media, and the article suggested that the e-mails represented a further "betrayal" of his wife by the complainant.

The editor said he did not consider that he had any moral obligation to keep the correspondence confidential or private, and it was in fact in the public interest to reveal the ongoing actions and attitudes of the complainant, which amounted to evidence of his "serious impropriety".

He said the only subject he had explicitly agreed to keep confidential concerned the money raised from the photograph, and he had not promised to keep subsequent information or the correspondence private.

On this point the PCC said it was clear there was a considerable dispute between the complainant and the editor, but it was not within its power to establish what had been agreed during their initial conversation, and it had to adjudicate on the basis of the evidence before it.

It said it was true that the complainant had regularly made it clear in his e-mails that he regarded the contents as confidential, but there was no evidence that the newspaper had accepted that it would treat the complainant as a confidential source, and it therefore did not consider that there was an issue to pursue under the terms of Clause 14.

It also rejected claims of a breach of Clause 3 (Privacy), which the PCC says protects people from the unauthorised publication of correspondence between two private individuals – not information sent directly to a newspaper.

It said there was nothing private about the relationship between the editor and the complainant, and the information could not reasonably be considered to relate to the complainant's private life, but rather was background to a public and high profile trial.

It also rejected complaints under Clause 1 (Accuracy) and Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock).

It said although there were a number of discrepancies highlighted by the complainant, it did not consider that any of them, in the context of the article as a whole, were so significant as to raise a breach of the Code.

It added that Clause 5 was generally relevant in the immediate aftermath of a bereavement or other shocking event and in this case the article had been published several months after the incident, following a high-profile trial, and it did not consider that there could be a possible breach in such circumstances.