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

Published on Tuesday 20 January 2009 19:46

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 in a student exchange programme with Leeds University. Walking into court on the first day of her trial, Knox made a terrible mistake: she smiled. The press leapt on her behaviour – accusing her of 'smirking', 'working the courtroom' and 'laughing as she faces court'. Few stopped to consider that she smiled simply because she was greeting her lawyer.

The endless vilification of Amanda Knox is chilling in its depth and complexity. Whether she is guilty no longer seems to matter. She has been portrayed as a brazen hussy, a vixen who posted titillating pictures of herself online and wrote stories about rape. In reality those actions were little different from those of many millions of young, curious and intelligent women today – yet Knox has pretty much been hung, drawn and quartered for them.

The press in Italy, America and in Britain seem unable to get over one thing about Knox in particular: that she is female. That she is young, and she is pretty and, worst of all, photogenic. The moniker Foxy Knoxy, which has been used against her many times now but was, in fact, a nickname she dreamed up herself for her cutesy, purple-and-rainbow-coloured MySpace page, has also sexualised her – turning her into the sort of female stereotype that we modern women wistfully thought had been assigned to the bin marked 'A history of sexism'.

Amid all this, it would be easy to forget that there is another defendant involved in the trial: Raffaele Sollecito, Knox's boyfriend at the time of the murder, whose name has too often been airbrushed from the headlines and the coverage.

It would also be easy to forget that a third person, Rudy Guede, has already been tried and found guilty of Kercher's murder and sentenced to 30 years.

And there is one final person involved: Meredith Kercher herself. If for no other reason than to guarantee a fair trial that honours her memory, these two defendants should be treated as equals.

At long last, Amy's said yes to rehab

SO AMY Winehouse has kicked the drugs. Should we pop the Champagne corks? Or stick to sparkling-water bottle tops? Strolling around the beaches of St Lucia with a new piece of 21-year-old boy candy on her arm (husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who recently admitted getting her into this mess in the first place by offering her crack, is apparently divorcing her), Winehouse does indeed look better, having gained some weight, got some sunshine on her skin and given an interview in which she stated: "I don't need drugs." If only all drug addicts could pop off to the Caribbean when they need to beat their cravings, eh?

While Winehouse's recovery is, however, an admirable achievement, her drug-induced descent into depravity cannot have had a positive influence on her young fans. Perhaps her most surprising move in 2009, then, will be to surprise everyone by setting a good example.

&#149 Dear Barack Obama. Thank you for becoming the 44th President of the USA. Thank you for persevering these past three years to reach this point and for caring enough – not just about your own country, but also about the rest of the world – to get here. I am 31, still young enough to be nave and hopeful about the future, to believe that things, however bad they are now, will get better. There are those who remain cynical about your presidency and think it is doomed to fail. But the thought that the world might, just might, be a better place with you at its helm is, for me, about as exciting as the future gets. The hard work starts here, Mr President.