A company which supplies British forces with rifle sights has offered to remove controversial Biblical references from the equipment, it said today.

The Ministry of Defence has ordered 400 advanced combat optical gunfights (ACOGs) from US-based Trijicon but yesterday it emerged that they are routinely marked with the characters JN8:12, a reference to the book of John, chapter 8, verse 12.

Trijicon, which has used Biblical references for more than 20 years, said today that it had agreed to stop marking equipment for the US military and would make the same offer to military forces abroad.

It is also offering modification kits to forces free of charge to enable the references to be removed from any equipment which is currently deployed.

A statement from Trijicon, based in Michigan, said the offer was made in response to concerns voiced by the US Department of Defence and would take effect immediately.