Marks and Spencer has removed the words “Christ” and “Jesus Christ” from a list of banned words after a Teddington pastor's wife was blocked from ordering a bouquet of flowers.

Rev Dominic Stockford, of Christ Church, and his wife attempted to order flowers for a neighbour who had been close to a member of the church who had recently died.

They added the message: "Thank you for your care and practical help for Margaret in her last days. With love from her church family, Christ Church Teddington," but were confronted with the on-screen warning: "Sorry there’s something in your message we can’t write."

Mr Stockford called the retail giant and was told the word "Christ" was blocked, and the assistant would have to enter the message manually himself.

Mr Stockford said: "We were baffled it was on this list. We cannot understand why. It is used as an expletive but very rarely in writing and it certainly would not be used on the whole in this sort of way, in a message with some flowers.

"It meant we couldn't use the name of our church in the message."

A spokesman for M&S said the automatic phrase checker, in place to prevent the misuse of certain words, would be revised.

He said: "We apologise for any offence caused, it was certainly never our intention."

Mr Stockford said he would not be put off using the service again.

He said: "They have apologised for the way their system worked. What was a slightly odd situation has been made more sensible."