Father "horrified" at TV recreation of Leeds student's murder

John Kercher said the production - which shows his daughter being grabbed by actors playing Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede - was "absolutely horrific".

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

Mr Kercher said: "To actually see it like this is very distressing. The scenes are absolutely horrific. It's awful what these film people have done."

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.

In another scene the victim'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, called Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy, is billed as being "based on a true story" and comes with the tagline: "There are two sides to every story."

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, a University of Leeds student, was murdered by the trio after a sex game taken to the extreme. According to the prosecution version of events, Sollecito held Miss Kercher down while Knox stabbed her.