The two families

Mr Knox and Mrs Mellas arrived for the verdict this week with Knox's sister, Deanna, and Mrs Mellas's husband, Chris, an IT expert. Knox's parents divorced in 1989 and remarried but continued to live near each other and came together again to defend their daughter.

When she was arrested they split the rent on a flat near the prison and say they have mortgaged themselves to the brink of financial ruin to try to help her. Mr Knox eventually gave up his job as a manager at Macy's department store to focus on the case.

They and their supporters at home in Seattle believed that the evidence against Knox was flawed or non- existent. They also campaigned to counteract the image of their daughter as a girl whose dark side emerged in the murder of her flatmate.

Over the past two years they have offered their views in interviews and informal chats in the hotels and bars of Perugia where journalists and lawyers have mingled after hearings. They have been careful not to join in some of the more extreme criticisms of Italian justice. "We have to believe in their legal system," Mr Knox said.

She is simply not capable of doing what they say she did

But they believed passionately in their daughter's innocence. "People don't know her," Mrs Mellas told The Times at one point. "She is simply not capable of doing what they say she did." Her daughter was "naive and trusting", she told one interviewer.

She pointed to her daughter's normal upbringing in a middle-class suburb of West Seattle. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. Knox spent much of her time being shuttled between their homes.

But the disruption did not affect Knox's grades. She consistently got As in the classroom and was a star of the girls' soccer team - "Foxy Knoxy". A photograph of her standing proudly in pigtails and team shirt, ball under her arm, was widely circulated at the start of her trial.

By most accounts she didn't get into trouble, loved the theatre and was "a little spacey". Later, at the University of Washington, she made the Dean's List of stand-out students and took three jobs to pay the $10,000 (£6,000) cost of studying in Italy.

Mrs Mellas has said that she and Mr Knox were naturally worried about their daughter being thousands of miles away but were not prepared for the call that Mrs Mellas took shortly before dawn on November 2, 2007. In it Knox said: "I'm OK, but I think somebody might have been in my house."

She told her mother that after spending the night with her new boyfriend she had found the front door of the cottage she shared with Ms Kercher open and drops of blood in the bathroom. Ms Kercher's bedroom door was locked. She said that she had taken a shower despite the blood and had then gone back to fetch Raffaele Sollecito, who called the police.

What Mrs Mellas also remembered was the panic in Knox's voice when she phoned later to say that Ms Kercher's body had been found.

She fought for her place here and she would have fought for her life to the end

Besieged by the media in Perugia, Mr Knox and Mrs Mellas at first opted for silence, on legal advice. They later decided to speak out to counteract what they saw as a false image of their daughter - to the point where last week, as they arrived in Perugia, they learnt that they were under investigation for alleged defamation for saying in an interview with The Sunday Times that Italian police had abused Knox physically and verbally while questioning her as a witness before her arrest. This, they claimed, induced her to write the partial "confession", later retracted, in which she admitted hearing Ms Kercher's screams.

'We are here for justice'

By contrast, the Kerchers, their daughter Stephanie and sons Lyle and John, have largely confined their remarks to statements released by their lawyer, Francesco Maresca. In a subtle swipe at the garrulous behaviour of the Americans, Mr Maresca said: "The difference between the families of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox is that one has been largely silent over the past two years, while the other has not."

When the Kerchers met the press in Perugia a few days after the crime they took no questions. Instead, Stephanie made an emotional statement, remembering Meredith as "one of the most beautiful, intelligent, witty and caring people you could wish to meet, a 21-year-old student who was into her studies, worked hard and enjoyed spending time socialising with her friends and family. We feel it is no exaggeration to say that Meredith touched the lives of everyone she met with her infectious upbeat personality, smile and sense of humour."

When the Kercher family gave their own evidence to the trial they said, again in a statement: "We are here not with hate but to have justice and to understand what exactly happened to Meredith, who was a wonderful person and who was in Perugia simply to study."

Stephanie told the court: "She was very passionate about things that were important to her - family, friends, coming to Italy. She fought for her place here and she would have fought for her life to the end."

Mrs Kercher said: "We will never, never get over this. It's such a shock to send your child to school and not have her come back and I still look for her."

Mr Kercher, a journalist, has revealed his suffering just once, in an article written for the Daily Mirror, the newspaper for which he writes. "I am at home when Meredith's mother Arline calls to say she's heard reports that a British girl student has been murdered in Perugia. Obviously, there is concern. But there are thousands of British students in Perugia, and you try to use that as a calming influence."

After failing to raise his daughter on the phone, he asked his colleagues at the Mirror for help. "There's some reluctance from the woman on the phone to give me the information. But I shall never forget her words: 'The name going around Italy is Meredith.' I drop the phone. I don't believe it and think there must be a mistake. But I know it's probably true. I can't cry, I'm numb with shock.

"Meredith is not only a terrible loss to her family and friends, she is also a huge loss to the

world."

Apart from that, he and his family have kept their grief private, breaking their silence on the second anniversary of their daughter's death only to announce that they had held "a dignified and simple commemoration, as suits her memory".

They have never said if they hoped for a conviction or an acquittal, only that they want "a conclusion, so that we can finally dedicate ourselves to remember Meredith for the person that all of us knew and not as a victim or as a news item.

"The two years since Meredith's death have passed very quickly. But we still miss her more than ever."