Tweedy thanks her bandmates

The 20-year-old singer, from Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, said she did not think she would have coped as well as she did without the support of her fellow band members.

"Without the support of the girls I do not think that I would have got through it as well as I did, to be honest," she told GMTV.

Her remarks were made after she was found guilty at Kingston Crown Court last month of assault, occasioning actual bodily harm, on nightclub attendant Sophie Amogbokpa.

She was cleared of another charge of racially aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Ms Amogbokpa.

Tweedy was sentenced to 120 hours community service and ordered to pay £500 compensation to 39-year-old Ms Amogbokpa, and £3,000 prosecution costs.

Fellow band member Nadine Coyle said the charges and subsequent trial had been "really hard" for Tweedy.

She said: "She has coped with it really well under the circumstances because we have been working so hard.

"But she got emotional a lot of the time but we all just tried to be there for her and help her through just as best as we could."

She said she had thought about the effect it would have on her fellow band members if she quit.

"I was never allowed to even think about it," she said, amid sympathetic laughter from her colleagues.

Tweedy said her experience of spending a night in a cell after she was arrested had been "awful" and a "bit surreal".

"It was like something out of a movie scene. It just did not seem real. I was in a little cell with a little wooden bench and a little sponge mattress."

Tweedy, who has insisted that she is not a racist, said the jury had reached an unanimous verdict in clearing of her of the charge of racially aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Ms Coyle said that calling Tweedy racist was "just ridiculous".

"I really think that was the worst thing that hurt Cheryl," she said.

Tweedy was asked if she accepted her conviction on the charge of assault. She replied: "Yes."

"I have already started community service. I do like six/eight hours a day whatever. That is my punishment and I am prepared to do whatever they come up with," she said.

She added that her community service would not entail "singing in old folks' homes or anything like that".

She said she was "getting better" as time went on although she was "still a bit raw".

"Once I have done my community service I will just put it all behind me and carry on," she said.