Amanda Knox ‘got along great’ with Meredith, says her mother

Edda Mellas, a teacher, said her daughter was desperate to help police after Miss Kercher was found semi-naked with her throat slashed in a bedroom of their house.

American student Knox, 21, and Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian former boyfriend, deny killing her after she refused to take part in a drug-fuelled sex game.

Mrs Mellas told the Perugia court: "She told me about all the fun times she had with Meredith She told me she liked all her room mates. They had no problems. Amanda was very upset about the death of her friend".

She also recounted her conversations with her daughter in the prison visiting room which were taped — they discussed bar owner Patrick Lumumba, who had been wrongfully arrested over Meredith's death, and how police pressured Knox into naming him.

Mrs Mellas said: "She felt terrible that she didn't have the courage to stand up to them and say that she had said something that was not true. Amanda told me, he (Lumumba) is in jail because of me. I feel terrible. I feel terrible Patrick is in this situation'."

Knox called her mother in Seattle three times between 4am and 5am, American time, before and after Meredith's body was found, the court heard.

Mrs Mellas said: "In the first call she said she had spent the night at Raffaele's house and then gone home to take a shower. She had found the door open and faeces in the bathroom.

"She said that she and Raffaele had gone back to the house and were pounding on Meredith's bedroom door. They had tried to break in and I told her to call the police."

Mrs Mellas said the calls became increasingly frantic: "The second time she said it was horrible. People were yelling that a foot had been found in Meredith's room.

"She said she couldn't understand everything and she was very upset because all she could understand was that a foot had been found and then she hung up. When she called a third time she said it was a person.

She was very upset and I asked her if she was OK and then she said she had to go because the police wanted to talk to her."

Knox and Sollecito had just begun a "beautiful love story," the Italian's father told the court earlier.

Francesco Sollecito, an eminent urologist, told the trial he was his son's "confidant" and that he told him about everything.

Mr Sollecito, from Giovinazzo near Bari, told the court: "Raffaele told me he had just started a beautiful love story with Amanda. He loved her and he adored her.

"He spoke to me about her in a way that he had never done about other girls. Raffaele had a certain affection towards Amanda."

Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was a Leeds University student and was in Perugia as part of her European studies degree.

The trial continues.