The Newcastle Evening Chronicle has faced criticism from the Press Complaints Commission for accidently revealing a confidential source.

A former employee of the Rural Payments Agency, a Government body that had been the subject of some criticism in the newspaper, e-mailed the Evening Chronicle to share some of her experiences, but asked to remain anonymous.

But a trainee reporter forwarded the e-mail to the Agency for comment, without removing the complainant’s details.

After investigating a complaint from the woman, the PCC ruled that the paper had breached of Clause 14 (Confidential Sources) of the Code.

The press watchdog said it was a serious and thoughtless error to have sent on the complainant’s details when she had specifically asked for anonymity, and that the protection of confidential sources was a basic principle of journalism.

The paper said it had accepted that a serious error had been made and had apologised.

The trainee reporter involved had also been formally disciplined, and he had contacted the Agency to explain that the e-mail should not have been sent.

The newspaper offered to apologise again to the complainant, in a private letter or in print.

The complainant had said she was not satisfied with the paper’s attempts to resolve the matter, and had taken too long to deal with it, but the PCC countered that the Evening Chronicle’s acceptance that it had made a mistake had limited the extent of its criticism.