They have a Meghan-esque penchant for self-help mumbo jumbo. Knox said that she had “three values that I can always exercise regardless of any situation that I’m in”, namely “curiosity, compassion and courage”, while at one point he spent several minutes relaying a Buddhist parable about a farmer.
Knox herself is a curious character. She is outwardly upbeat, and often makes jokes on stage, but has a manic fidgety-ness about her. She seemed unable to sit still as she relayed the horrors of her story; now shifting her legs under herself, now jumping up, now sitting cross-legged on her chair. At one early point, when the microphones she and her husband were holding started making static noises, she jumped up and sat on the lap of Louise Hewitt, the director of the Innocence Project London who hosted proceedings.
She takes umbrage with the idea that her continued public presence is “offensive” to Kercher’s family. “I feel like that was a rule that was invented just for me. Because you don’t hear that when other wrongly convicted people tell their stories,” she said. “It’s sort of understood that if you’ve been wronged, you’re entitled to stand up for yourself and confront the institutions that wronged you. It’s an interesting situation that I find myself in, where I’m constantly being compared to my dead friend.”
The audience of about 60 to 70 was well disposed to Knox. Some of her friends and family were in attendance, while many in the room seemed to be defence lawyers or others involved in trying to overturn wrongful convictions. Hence softball questions about how beastly the media can be, whether she has managed to get some form of closure and the merits of jury trials.