Crossword Genius

Cat kept by defendant as familiar (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

accustomed

'familiar' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'cat kept by defendant' is the wordplay.
'cat' becomes 'tom' (a tom is a male cat).
'kept by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'defendant' becomes 'accused' ('accused' can be a synonym of 'defendant').
'tom' placed into 'accused' is 'ACCUSTOMED'.

'as' is the link.

(Other definitions for accustomed that I've seen before include "Used to" , "familiar" , "usual" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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