Shirley Brown the Bristol City councillor charged for calling a fellow councillor a "coconut", is believed to have suffered a stroke.

The 48-year-old councillor missed an appearance at Bristol Magistrates' Court yesterday where her condition was revealed, but was said to still be fit to stand trial, according to her lawyers.

The Liberal Democrat councillor was charged with causing Jay Jethwa, an Asian Conservative councillor, racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by using the alleged slur during a debate at the Council House, College Green, on February 24 last year.

Mrs Brown was due in court for a case management hearing ahead of her trial but officials were left waiting when neither she nor her solicitors showed up.

Half an hour after her case had been scheduled to be heard, magistrates were informed Mrs Brown was not present as she had suffered a stroke recently.

Mrs Brown's London-based solicitors contacted the court to say they were not attending as they had not yet been "put in funds" to take the case further and informed the court Mrs Brown's health had prevented her from appearing.

She is understood to have been discharged from hospital and was seen attending an evening function in Bristol last Thursday night for the visit of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Her lawyers said she is having further medical tests and the news follows a stroke scare in 2007 when she collapsed at work in Easton and was taken to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Her condition was later thought to be down to exhaustion.

The magistrates yesterday agreed to adjourn her case until April 29.

Bristol City Council leader Barbara Janke told the Evening Post: "Shirley has been unwell. She was admitted to hospital a few weeks ago with a suspected stroke, from which she is now recovering."

Mrs Brown indicated to the court on February 15 she would be pleading not guilty to the charge when the case is heard later this year, although she has yet to make a formal plea in relation to the charges.

It is alleged the term "coconut" is a racial slur that can be used to describe someone who belongs to an ethnic minority group but promotes the interests of white people, namely black on the outside and white on the inside.

Mrs Jethwa, who represents Stockwood, is Asian while Mrs Brown, who represents Ashley, is black.

At the meeting, Mrs Brown said: "In our culture we have a word for you, a word which many in our city would understand, and that's coconut.

"At the end of the day I look at you as that."

Mrs Brown made the comment after Mrs Jethwa backed an unsuccessful Tory proposal to cease funding for the Legacy Commission, an organisation set up to support ethnic minorities in Bristol.

She has not been suspended as a result of the charge and is able to continue her council duties pending the outcome of the trial.