Former Stanford University student Brock Turner, whose sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman created international controversy, has been released from jail after serving three months.

Turner, a 21-year-old swimmer, was released early for good behaviour and didn’t answer questions as he left the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, California.

Sheriff’s deputies flanked him as he left the scene in a white sports utility.

Turner, then 19, was arrested after being caught assaulting an intoxicated and unconscious 22-year-old woman on campus in January 2015.

The attack only ended when two cyclists, international students from Sweden, intervened.

The woman, who woke in hospital following the attack, learned the graphic details of her attack through news reports, including that she was found “behind a dumpster”.

Turner was charged with sexual assault instead of rape, because although he digitally penetrated the woman, he did not have intercourse with her, and California law does not define that as rape.

Turner’s mugshot was withheld by the District Attorney for 16 months. Photo: Santa County Sheriff’s Office

The case gained notoriety after the victim’s letter to her attacker went viral, triggering global anger at Turner’s relatively minor short sentence.

Following the sentencing, a petition calling for the judge residing over the case to be disbarred garnered over one million signatures, while the anger intensified after a letter sent by Turner’s father to the judge claimed his son should not be punished for “20 minutes of action”.

In June, judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to six months in prison, followed by three years probation.

Turner’s victim, identified as “Emily Doe,” made a powerful statement at his sentencing that drew international attention and went viral.

She told her attacker in the statement read in court: “You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today.

“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today.”

Text messages retrieved from the former champion swimmer’s mobile phone contradict his claims that he was a clean-living, small-town boy seduced by the heavy drinking and casual-sex culture of university.

Turner had claimed he consensually engaged in sexual activity with the victim, and was blindsided when two Swedish graduate students chased him and pinned him to the ground after riding past on bicycles.

WITH ABC