3 Jul 2009, 1136 hrs IST

Bristol, A local councillor, who insulted an Indian-origin colleague by calling her a 'coconut' during a budget debate in February, has been suspended from the city council for a month.

Liberal Democrat Shirley Brown of Afro-Caribbean origin called her colleague Jay Jethwa a 'coconut,' a term that suggests someone from an ethnic minority has "sold out" their culture, implying the person is "brown on the outside, white on the inside."

Brown, who later apologised for the remark, used the term during a heated debate over Conservative attempts to cut funding to the Legacy Commission, an organisation set up to support Bristol's ethnic minorities.

"I am sincerely sorry. It was never my intention to hurt, harm or bring any disrepute to the council. We all use different terminology in our culture, unfortunately I used the wrong terminology. It was never my intention to offend. I should not have said it," Brown said.

In her summary, inquiry committee chairperson Anne Foot said, "This committee condemns without reservation the deeply offensive language. Whilst there could have been far worse examples of abusive language these particular words were aimed to cause offence and in fact caused offence."

0 (0)