AS REPORTED ON 10 JUNE 2016: The Vice President of the US has written an emotional open letter to the Stanford rape survivor who read a statement directly to her attacker in court.

The unnamed woman was raped by Brock Turner as she lay unconscious behind a dumpster in January 2015. In March 2016, Turner was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and given a six-month prison sentence – a punishment which has since been widely condemned for its leniency.

The survivor addressed Turner directly in court at the end of the case. Her 75,000-word victim impact statement has been read millions of times since it was published online, and has prompted widespread discussion in the US and around the world about the treatment of the survivors and perpetrators of sexual assault.

Now, US Vice President Joe Biden has written an open letter to the young woman. In the message, published on BuzzFeed, he praises her bravery and describes her as “a warrior – with a solid steel spine” and “limitless potential”.

“I am in awe of your courage for speaking out – for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity,” Biden wrote. “And I am filled with furious anger – both that this happened to you and that our culture is still so broken that you were ever put in the position of defending your own worth.”

Biden, who wrote the country’s 1994 Violence Against Women Act and backs the White House’s “It’s On Us” campaign against sexual assault on college campuses, said that the young woman had been failed by a culture in the US where one in five women on a college campus is sexually assaulted. “And you were failed by anyone who dared to question this one clear and simple truth: Sex without consent is rape. Period. It is a crime.”

The Stanford rape survivor from the Brock Turner case has just revealed her true identity