Meredith Kercher murder recreated for TV film

The harrowing scene of Meredith Kercher's murder has been recreated for a television film, showing her screaming in terror as her killers pin her down.

Wearing a white bra, she appears in the movie footage with the hands of actors playing Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede grabbing hold of her, moments before she is stabbed.

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

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 likely to prove upsetting for Miss Kercher's family, the University of Leeds student'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 is billed as being "based on a true story" and comes with the tagline: "There are two sides to every story."

Its 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."

Miss Kercher's family is reportedly unhappy about the making of the film, which poses the question of whether Knox actually committed the crime in November 2007 or was herself a victim.

University of Washington student Knox, 23, from Seattle, was sentenced to 26 years behind bars 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 following a fast-track trial in October 2008. His sentence was cut to 16 years on appeal.

Knox's family is also unhappy about the film, called Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy.

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 was murdered by the trio after a sex game taken to the extreme.

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