Knox faces relatives of killed student Meredith

It was the first glimpse of the American for the parents of Ms Kercher, 21, an exchange student from Coulsdon, south London, who was found seminaked and stabbed to death in the bedroom of her student flat in Perugia on 1 November last year.

Making her first public appearance in almost a year, Knox, 21, from Seattle, dressed in a white lace-edged blouse, blue jeans and a hint of makeup as she was escorted into court by guards.

She kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead as she was led into the Italian courtroom this morning and ignored a journalist who shouted: "Did you do it, Amanda?" The closed-door hearing in Perugia with second accused Rudy Hermann Guede, 21, an immigrant from Ivory Coast was expected to last all day.

Fellow suspect, and Knox's Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, was absent from the hearing even though his lawyers said the computer studies graduate would attend. One lawyer said he was not there because he "was not very well". All three suspects deny sexually assaulting and murdering Miss Kercher.

Before the hearing, Sollecito's father, a urologist, said: "Raffaele is calm and we are approaching this case serenely. I have given him the whole case file and he has been reading it in jail."

Miss Kercher's parents, John and Arline, were joined by her sister Stephanie for the start of the hearing which began as audio tapes of Sollecito's emergency call to police on 1 November were released.

The recording forms a vital part of the prosecution case as police say the first call was made after officers had arrived at Knox and Miss Kercher's flat.

They say officers found the dead student's phone in a garden and traced the address through the SIM card. When they arrived at the flat they found Sollecito and Knox outside, they claim.

In the tape Sollecito says: "Hello, someone has broken into the house through a window and made a real mess. There is also a locked door. There are signs, there is blood in the bathroom. Also one of the doors is shut, it's the room of one of the flatmates. We have tried calling her on the phone but there is no answer."

Sollecito's lawyers have insisted that the timer was faulty and the call was made before the police arrived.