One of Britain's top barristers had to rewrite his memoirs after accusing a former client of a series of murders he did not commit.

 Michael Mansfield QC, whose high profile cases include the inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Jean Charles de Menezes, said his accusation that John Bowden was involved in a series of murders which involved "carving up homosexuals and winos" was a "mistaken recollection".

The error was made in the to hardback edition of Mr Mansfield's Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer and will be corrected for the paperback version which is out next month, publisher Bloomsbury said.

In his original memoirs, Mr Mansfield described how he was asked to attend Parkhurst high-security prison on the Isle of Wight after inmates took an assistant prison governor hostage in 1983.