A woman who made a court bid to change the name on her birth certificate to Jesus Christ has been warned she risks being banned from bringing further litigation.

Judge Hodge QC made the warning despite the claimant in Hargreaves v The District Probate Court. He said in that the claim had been ‘arrant nonsense’ and later stated in his written judgment that the application was totally without merit.

Considering whether to impose restrictions on the claimant’s right to bring further applications, he added: ‘There appears to be a slight oddity in the provisions relating to the making of civil restraint orders. There has only been one application in this case, which is the instant application, and therefore there is not the basis for making even a limited civil restraint order against the claimant because she has only made one application which has been found to be totally without merit.

‘However, I warn the claimant now that if she makes any further claims or applications of a similar nature, then the court may well find that it has the power to, and that it should, make a civil restraint order against her.’

The court heard that Michelle Andrea Derrig, known as Michelle Andrea Hargreaves after marriage, changed her name last November to Jesus Christ.

She complained of having been wrongly named, that she was reborn of water and spirit from the living god in Jesus Christ and sought relief which appeared to relate to the name on her birth certificate and registration of her birth. The defendants were referred to as the district probate court lessors, reversioners and/or tenants in possession or persons respectively.

The claim form relied on the Cestui Que Vie Act 1666 which related to property held on trust. The judge said he confessed to being ‘totally unable to see the relevance of that statute to the present claim’.

The judge made an order when the claim form was first issued to strike it out. The claimant, 59, applied to set aside that order and addressed the court for 20 minutes during a telephone hearing, after which the judge dismissed the application, saying there was nothing to suggest her birth was in any way wrongly registered.