A regional news title has been rapped for relying on an unofficial Twitter account for a story about an MP.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld a complaint by Tory MP David Morris over an inaccurate MyLondon story about expenses he had claimed for rail travel.

IPSO also found MyLondon should have apologised to Mr Morris, who is the MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, and ruled he was given an inadequate opportunity to respond to the claim before publication.

The Reach plc-owned website had initially reported the MP had travelled back from London to his constituency and that the travel had cost £229.20 and that the price of his ticket had been revealed in a report of MP staffing costs and business expenses for the previous year by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).

But the piece prompted Mr Morris to complain to IPSO Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 2 (Privacy) and Clause 3 (Harassment) of the Editors’ Code of Practice, on the grounds that it had referred throughout to a single “ticket”, whereas the tickets had been for him, his wife, and their baby.

The Conservative also said MyLondon inaccurately stated that he had been travelling from London to his constituency, whereas he had been travelling from his constituency to London, and that it was inaccurate to describe the tickets in question as “expensive”.

Mr Morris said he had been initially contacted for comment at 8.48am and given a deadline of 2pm to respond, but the story was published that same morning at 11.45am.

His comment, which he sent at 12.06pm, was then not then added into the story until 3pm.

Denying any breach of Code, MyLondon said that it had first become aware of the expense from a Twitter account that posted about MP expenses and which described the expense as “£229.20 for MP travel by train (First Single)”.

It said that the IPSA website also listed the expense as “MP travel” and that it was therefore reasonable to state that the fare was solely for Mr Morris, adding it had relied on both the information from IPSA and the tweet and that it was satisfied that care had been taken.

MyLondon amended the story to make clear the direction of travel and that the value was for multiple “tickets” as a gesture of goodwill, but did not consider either point represented a significant inaccuracy.

The site noted the concerns of Mr Morris in regard to the timing of the approach for comment and publication for future reference, but said he had been provided with a fair opportunity to comment and given a number of hours to respond.

It further considered that, to the everyday reader, £220 would seem “expensive” and did not consider the term to be misleading or inaccurate.

IPSO found MyLondon was entitled to rely on the information included on the IPSA website, but it was obliged to take care not to publish inaccurate or misleading information in doing so.

The Committee noted that while the expense appeared under a section headed “MP travel” it was individually described as a cost for “MP & staff” and therefore could relate to more than one person.

The IPSA website did not specify how many train tickets the expense covered and IPSO therefore considered that the publication should have sought this information prior to publishing the story, and that relying on a claim published on an unofficial Twitter account did not amount to sufficient care taken over the accuracy of the information.

IPSO noted that the story had been amended to refer to multiple “tickets”, but the site had not offered to publish any corrective action on this point and should also have apologised.

It further ruled that the description of the fare as “expensive” had been adopted by the publication itself in the sub-headline and body of the story and considered that this contributed to the misleading impression that the expense of £229.20 had been only for Mr Morris’s travel.

The complaint was partly upheld under Clause 1, and the full adjudication can be read here.