January's issue of the men's magazine repeats pages 137 to 168 before skipping to page 200, meaning content between pages 169 to 200 was lost.

Articles by AA Gill, Michael Wolff and Julia Moore were missing from the affected issues along with the cover feature, an interview with actress Jessica Biel. The Talk section of the magazine was also absent.

Pat Martell, group operations director at St Ives, said: "The error was a human one, not a systemic one. It was unacceptable, but we have looked into it and taken steps to ensure it doesn't happen again."

A Condé Nast spokeswoman said: "The printer used by GQ confirmed that the omission and subsequent duplication of a section of the January issue was caused by human error in the bindery.

"Further investigation has revealed that a maximum of 10 such 'rogue' copies could have been affected in this way. While it in no way excuses their responsibility for quality control, this is obviously a tiny number of affected issues for a magazine with a circulation of 130,008."