Jake Speight has been released from prison after successfully appealing against his sentence.

The City striker will be back in training on Monday after a judge at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday changed the original ruling.

His 12-week sentence for assault has been suspended for 18 months and he must do 100 hours of community work.

It means Speight is free to resume his new career at Valley Parade - and rebuild bridges with the club and the fans.

Speaking exclusively to the Telegraph & Argus, his solicitor Mark Croft stressed how grateful Speight has been that the club stuck by him.

He said: "I regret that this whole situation developed and I know Jake bitterly regrets putting the club in this position.

"We are very grateful for the way this has been handled by Peter Taylor and everybody at Bradford City. We massively appreciate the support that he has been given.

"Jake is determined to repay the faith the manager has shown in him and determined to regain the trust and respect of the supporters. I'm sure he will do that."

Croft admitted that they had decided not to tell City or his previous side Mansfield about the court case because they did not expect the 24-year-old to be jailed.

"Once I became aware of the incident, we discussed it at length and made a decision not to tell anybody," he added. "Mansfield Town 100 per cent didn't know.

"As well as doing football agency, I'm an experienced criminal lawyer and if we had thought for a minute that he was going to receive an immediate custodial sentence then we would have told both clubs. But I was absolutely convinced he wouldn't, and my faith in that was vindicated by the appeal.

"This incident was extremely out of character for Jake. He has no previous convictions."

Speight was jailed just over a week after completing his "dream" £25,000 switch to City. He can now join his new team-mates for next week's Essex tour.

Croft said: "Before the move to Bradford, there were a number of clubs interested in signing Jake. But this was his dream move.

"He wanted to play for Peter Taylor and he wanted to play for Bradford City.

"We agonised over this but Jake's desire to play for Bradford was so strong and we generally didn't believe he would be sent to prison.

"In fairness to Jake, he was aware that I had this same scenario with another player of mine. In that situation we felt there was a very real risk of the player going to prison and we told the prospective buying club.

"They didn't sign him and the irony then was that the player did not receive a custodial sentence."