Meredith Kercher's father attacks 'absolutely horrific' film of daughter's death

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12 April 2012

The father of Meredith Kercher has criticised a television film showing her screaming in terror as her killers pin her down, it was reported today.

John Kercher said the production - which shows his daughter being grabbed by actors playing Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede - was "absolutely horrific".

The images have been released in a trailer for the film, which will air on US channel Lifetime on February 21.

Mr Kercher told The Sun: "To actually see it like this is very distressing. The scenes are absolutely horrific. It's awful what these film people have done."

The 21-year-old British murder victim, from Coulsdon, Surrey, is played by actress Amanda Fernando Stevens, while Heroes star Hayden Panettiere is cast as Amanda Knox.

The attractive young American, dubbed Foxy Knoxy, is shown in a romantic tussle with her then lover Sollecito, then caged behind the bars of a police van.

In another scene the victim's body is shown partially covered by a duvet on her bedroom floor, just as she was found in the cottage she shared with Knox on her year abroad in Perugia, Italy.

The movie, called Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy, is billed as being "based on a true story" and comes with the tagline: "There are two sides to every story."

The blurb reads: "Knox was painted as an oversexed, remorseless killer during her two-year trial leading up to her conviction and subsequent sentencing to 26 years in jail."

Clips in the trailer show Knox's on-screen mother, Edda Mellas, saying: "She's kind, she's gentle," while an actor playing Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, the barman Knox falsely accused of the killing, seethes: "She's evil."

The film poses the question of whether Knox committed the crime in November 2007 or was herself a victim.

Its screening comes in the middle of her appeal process which, if successful, could result in her guilty verdict being overturned or her sentence being slashed.

Lawyers representing her and Sollecito recently won a full review of the evidence used to convict the pair, which will delay the result of the appeal but may work in their clients' favour.

They have disputed the forensic evidence used by prosecutors to support their argument that Miss Kercher, a University of Leeds student, was murdered by the trio after a sex game taken to the extreme.

According to the prosecution version of events, Sollecito held Miss Kercher down while Knox stabbed her.

University of Washington student Knox, 23, from Seattle, was sentenced to 26 years after being convicted in December 2009 along with Italian Sollecito, 26, who was jailed for 25 years.

Guede, a small-time drug dealer from the Ivory Coast, was jailed for 30 years after a fast-track trial in October 2008. His sentence was cut to 16 years on appeal.

Watch the trailer below

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