The Department of Justice has written to the 14 people - of whom one was given a one-month prison sentence - to advise them that their convictions will be reviewed after it was discovered G4S used a faulty batch of tags over a 10-month period.

Tags attached to another 66 people may have triggered a false alert.

BBC News reports that G4S will be liable for any legal and compensation costs, and may also face a financial penalty.

The DoJ was made aware in May of a potential manufacturing defect in a batch of clips used to attach straps to the electronic monitoring units.

A spokesperson said: “The priority for the Department is to ensure that anyone subject to electronic monitoring during the period in question has not been disadvantaged in any way as a result of the issue.

“The Department continues to stringently monitor the service delivery of all electronic monitoring in Northern Ireland and has received an assurance from G4S that all the potentially faulty clips have been removed from service.”

A statement from G4S added: “The new production process for this part of the equipment has been tested and independently verified by the UK Ministry of Justice’s approved test laboratory.

“We have worked closely with the Department of Justice and other relevant parties to determine which cases might have been affected and may need to be withdrawn from any further action.

“We are satisfied that the action taken has rectified the fault and we are confident that all of those affected cases have been identified.”