'Amanda Knox: The Untold Story' - a review of the Channel 5 TV show

Beware of any TV show with the title 'Untold Story'. For those who have been following the case, there was nothing new revealed in the Channel 5 show. I suppose the title draws in the viewers. One day Trading Standards will catch up with TV Executives and they will change the title to 'Amanda Knox: nothing new but quite slickly edited, go on, give it a look'.

Here's a quick summary of the case for the uninitiated. British student, Meredith Kercher, was murdered in Perugia in 2007. Her flatmate, Amanda Knox, and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were accused. Under interrogation, Knox accused a bar owner. He had an alibi. DNA and fingerprints pointed to a man called Rudy Guede. The police and prosecution decided Rudy, Amanda and Raffaele were all in on it. All three were convicted of murder. Amanda and Raffaele were released on appeal.

There was an expert in DNA and a criminologist on hand to give their views, interviews with Knox's family and reconstructions. The Channel 5 show was slickly edited. No interview clip was allowed to stay on screen for more than five seconds at a time. If Jason Bourne had jumped through a window at one point, I would not have been surprised.

I've always fancied myself as a soothsayer. And I predict that they will still be making shows about this case for years. Because that's what happens when police, the forensics team and the prosecution botch a case so badly that any view on what happened is valid.

Let's start with the forensics team. The important thing about collecting DNA is to maintain the purity of the samples. The team in Perugia made fundamental errors. They didn't change gloves or instruments between collecting different samples, which can lead to contamination of the evidence. The DNA expert was quite clear about this. He had white hair, so he must be a wise man. And I've heard this before too.

The prosecution team were as bad. They concocted a story that the murder was the result of a sex game gone wrong. As all the participants in this case are attractive, it was an appealing idea to the public imagination, and especially to some of the more salacious newspapers. There's no physical evidence to support this. It's just a rattling good yarn.

What the show touched upon, but never fully explored, is the real problem with this case - Amanda Knox herself. How do I put this? Well, to put it kindly, the girl doesn't help herself.

I can accept that her accusing of an innocent man was a result of an over-zealous lawyer-free interrogation. But her behaviour afterwards: getting steamy shopping for underwear the next day, supposedly performing gymnastics at the police station; was bizarre. Her sister called her 'quirky'. There are other names - 'insensitive', 'stupid', 'immature'.

But that doesn't mean she's a murderer. If they filled the prisons with people like this there would be more in than out.

I feel like doing a Kevin Costner impression at this point: 'Let's stick to the evidence, people.'

'Amanda Knox: The Untold Story' was settling on the idea that the court of appeal got it right until the programme makers realised that this was not a very dramatic ending for a show called 'The Untold Story'. So, to end it, they dragged back that criminologist who averred that Rudy Guede was not a lone killer. There was a third person involved. Who, what or why was left hanging. If they had more evidence, they weren't telling.

Of course the real untold story is the commercial exploitation of this story yet to come. Knox is about to become a multi-millionaire.

Fine, I say. Sue the authorities for wrongful arrest. Take them to the cleaners.

But if the money comes via the glamour and glitz of Hollywood, or a rehearsed, full make-up, soft soaped interview on a glossy network magazine show, many will consider that a 'crime' in itself, irredeemably tarnishing the memory of her friend, Meredith Kercher.

Amanda Knox - Guilty By Appearance

I've had the same conversation with so many people today about Amanda Knox. Each one goes something like this:

"Knox has been freed then."
"Yeah. The scientific evidence was pretty flawed."
"True. Must have been hell for her."
"Sure. Young woman locked up for a crime she didn't commit."
"You know what?"
"What?"
"One thing I can't get over. She just looks guilty."

If Knox could hear what people are saying about her in my neck of the woods, she'd hear these words reverberating around her head. 'There's just something about her', 'It's her eyes', 'She doesn't look innocent', 'She's sneering at us'.

Police back in Victorian times had a failsafe method of detecting whether you were a member of the criminal classes. It all depended on the shape of your head and the quality of your features. It was called physiognomy.  And it was state of the art - having a unibrow, for instance, was a sure sign of guilt. There were men with callipers measuring the distance between your eyes and the size of your forehead. It was important to the Victorians because they believed that being a criminal was something in your phsycial make-up. It was genetic, if they'd known what genes were.

But we've moved on from that. We've progressed through real science. In our modern world it's what moves one generation on from the previous one. And there's no scientific evidence that puts Amanda at the scene of the crime, Meredith's bedroom.There's flimsy, circumstantial evidence, heresay, and a forced confession without witnesses. But none of Knox's DNA is there. It's difficult to murder somebody and not leave any DNA behind. There's plenty of Rudy Guede's.

So why does that little voice in our heads keep saying she's guilty? Look at any photo of her when she's not smiling. The hooded eyes. When eyes are that sunken, they have got to be hiding nefarious thoughts and deeds. They look like the entrance to caves that hold weapons of mass destruction. Then there are the eyebrows that arch in towards those eyes, as if tipping us off that she has secrets she's keeping from us.

But this is all nonsense. We are creatures of the scientific world. We are rational beings. We must banish the beliefs of our medieval forefathers. Yet they keep raising themselves up from their burial grounds to tap us on the shoulder. 'Look how far apart her eyes are. That's not right.' Shut up. 'Look at the pouty mouth, offering the promise of sexual favours.' Be quiet.

I want to be a man of the modern world. I want to think logically. I want to deny my superstitious ancestry. But something keeps dragging my mind back into the pit. At least I know that's what's happening. I can live with it.

Enjoy your freedom Amanda Knox. R.I.P. Meredith Kercher.

Mark Capell is the author of 'Run, Run, Run', available from Amazon and Amazon U.K.