A former Olympic swimming hopeful jailed for raping a woman outside a party at Stanford University is appealing his sentence.

Brock Turner, 22, was convicted in March last year of sexually assaulting the woman after they drank heavily at a fraternity party at the university campus in California in January 2015.

Judge Aaron Persky sparked outrage when he handed him a six-month jail term - with prosecutors having pushed for six years - and Turner received hate mail when he was released after just three months.

Now his lawyers are hoping to overturn his mandatory lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender, describing the initial trial as "a detailed and lengthy set of lies".

Image: The 22-year-old continues to deny his victim's account of the attack

John Tompkins, Turner's legal adviser, said they were appealing because they believe what happened at the campus was not a crime and that the facts do not reflect the verdict.


Turner, who was convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault, had said that the woman was awake and conscious throughout the incident.

His victim told the court that she had woken up hours after the attack with dried blood on her hands and no memory of meeting Turner or being taken to hospital.

Image: Turner's trial and sentence sparked national outcry

She also spoke of the "irreversible damage" she suffered in a statement that was widely circulated on social media.

The then Vice President Joe Biden wrote an open letter to support her, in which he criticised the culture of US university campuses and the "callous" remarks made by the rapist's father, who said his son - who dropped out of Stanford after his arrest - had paid "a steep price for 20 minutes of action".