Stanford sexual assault victim says she was 'struck silent' by light sentence handed to Brock Turner

The young woman wrote an essay for 'Glamour' magazine

An updated photo of Brock Turner now appears on the Ohio Attorney General's office website, where he will be listed as a sex offender for life (Ohio Attorney General's Office/Reuters)

The young woman in the Stanford sexual assault case has spoken of her horror when she learned of the light sentence handed out to her attacker, Brock Turner.

The young woman, who chose to be identified by the name Emily Doe, wrote an essay for Glamour, after being named as the magazine’s Woman of the Year. She was 22 when she was attacked by the swimmer after attending a Stanford fraternity party with her younger sister in January 2915.

In her essay, the student said she was happy when a jury convicted Turner, but was “struck silent” in court when she learned of the light sentence handed down by Judge Aaron Persky.


 Brock Turner, the former Stanford swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, leaves the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, California, U.S. September 2, 2016. 
 (Reuters)

“Immediately I felt embarrassed for trying, for being led to believe I had any influence. The violation of my body and my being added up to a few months out of his summer,” she wrote.

“I began to panic; I thought, this can’t be the best case ­scenario. If this case was meant to set the bar, the bar had been set on the floor.”

Judge Persky sparked outcry after sentencing Brock to just six months in jail. He only ended up serving three for good behaviour and was released earlier the year. There was a petition in California to remove Mr Persky from his position.

She said that she felt support from around the world after allowing the media to republish her victim's impact statement. It was then that she started getting letters of support from every corner of the globe,.

“I started getting e-mails forwarded to me from Botswana to Ireland to India,” she said.

“I received watercolor paintings of lighthouses and bicycle earrings. A woman who plucked a picture of her young daughter from the inside of her cubicle wrote, ‘This is who you’re saving’.”