A WOMAN who has legally changed her name to Christ has lost a a lengthy 20-year court battle where she was claiming £33 million from a church insurance company.

Lady Christ has been embroiled in a bitter row with brokers Ecclesiastical Insurance since 1998, making it one of the longest disputes of its kind in Scottish history.

Lady -- whose full name is Lady Iam Hazel Virginia Whitehouse-Grant-Christ -- was asking for a payout after her former church home was gutted by a fire.

She, and her husband Lord Christ, bought St Brandon’s church in Boyndie, Banffshire, for £20,000 in 1998 and took out property insurance and moved in, however it was destroyed in a blaze two years later.

The insurers refused to pay out on their original £1million claim – saying Lady Christ withheld information when she took out the policy.

The case was frozen in 2002 but Lady Christ, who is linked to a group called Solehealism, managed to get it back into court in 2012.

The company also raised a counter-claim action at the Court of Session saying she had failed to tell them that her artist husband was running a business at the property and also failed to disclose he had two criminal convictions.

It was then thrown out of Edinburgh's Court of Session in 2015 but the decision was overruled on appeal last year.

Now the Court of Session has dismissed Lady Christ's claim of compensation.

They upheld Ecclesiastical Insurance's counter-claim, which has been postponed with requests for further information.