Shin Dong-hyuk, whose account of a childhood spent in a North Korean prison camp helped rally condemnation of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses, has admitted to altering parts of his story.

Blaine Harden, author of a bestselling biography of Mr Shin, said on his website the latter had “significantly revised details of his early life and substantially changed the dates and places of major events”, while arguing that the revisions “in no way changed the horror of his story”.

Mr Shin attracted global attention for his account of a childhood spent entirely in Camp 14, described by rights activists as one of the worst in North Korea’s network of political prison camps. A UN report last year estimated that up to 120,000 people are held in the camps, and “gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labour?.?.?.?and the denial of reproductive rights enforced through punishment, forced abortion and infanticide”.