Britons were crippled by 107,288 bankruptcies in 2006, a record figure and a 59 per cent rise on the 2005 figure, the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) has revealed.

In the final quarter of 2006, personal bankruptcies hit almost 30,000 – seven per cent higher than in the third quarter and a massive 44 per cent higher than in the final quarter of 2005.

Some analysts linked the rising figures towards the end of the year to banks’ increased unwillingness to sign customers onto IVAs (individual voluntary arrangements).

“The 107,288 people who went insolvent this year wouldn’t fit into the enlarged Wembley Stadium,” Louise Brittain, head of the personal insolvency department at Baker Tilly, told the Guardian.

Too many British consumers are “blindly taking on debt without thinking how they will repay it,” she commented.

Last week, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) revealed that over one million Britons had missed regular debt payments.

Total outstanding debt in the UK reached £1.3 trillion in December – another record high.

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