Emma Cowing: Yes, she is foxy, but what does that have to do with justice?

WHEN viewers of an Italian TV station voted 21-year-old American student Amanda Knox female personality of the year in December 2008, ahead of such luminaries as Carla Bruni, no-one in Italy was very surprised. After all, her name had barely been out of the headlines, her image had become even more familiar than that of the new first lady of France, and she even had her own nickname: Foxy Knoxy.

Last week, Knox, who has been in prison in the small Umbrian town of Perugia since November 2007, finally stood trial for the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher, the British student who was found brutally killed in the town while taking part...