A black councillor has been found guilty of racial harassment after describing an Asian political opponent as "a coconut" during a heated debate today. Shirley Brown, 48, the first black Liberal Democrat elected to Bristol city council, who employed the term about a Conservative, Jay Jethwa, denied committing an offence.
Bristol magistrates court heard the term was used to accuse someone of betraying their heritage by pandering to white opinion, just as a coconut was brown on the outside but white in the middle.
She was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £620 in costs. The chairman of the bench, Simon Cooper, told her the remark had been "purely gratuitous" and could have stimulated racial hatred.
"You made a mistake for which you have to accept responsibility," he added. "It is a sad case."
Jethwa, 42, did not hear the remark during the council meeting but watched it later on a webcast.
She wept as she told the court: "I was completely shocked and I was numb and had to rewind the footage to see if it was only me she had directed the comment to. I was very, very upset and distressed. The word is doubly insulting as it insults both me and the white population."
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