The Ministry of Justice has blamed a data error after it published figures showing that 150 suspects had been trapped in jail for more than five years while awaiting trial.
The remand population is currently at its highest in at least 50 years, and is a major driver of prison overcrowding, surging from 9,600 inmates to 16,200 in just four years as the courts backlog soared. Last year, 35 per cent of self-inflicted deaths in prisons were among those on remand.
