AIBU to think an Edinburgh festival show about Meredith Kercher's murder should be stopped?

[VivienneDelacroix]

Aibu to think that this show at the Edinburgh Festival should be cancelled? It mocks the circumstances around the murder of Meredith Kercher and serves it up as entertainment.

Not only is it horribly disrespectful of Meredith's family, but it also belittles the issue of violence against girls and women.

Meredith's siblings are calling for it to be pulled from the festival. There is also a petition calling for it to be stopped.

c.org/WXGTGJfpRh

That isn’t an established fact though. The ECHR found serious procedural and legal assistance failures during the questioning, but it did not find that police forced Knox to name Patrick Lumumba. Her conviction and for falsely accusing him remains in force.

@AsHot i have read all your posts (all 64 of them!) and you are utterly beholden and indeed committed to your stance on this case.

Do you have any skin in the game? You joined mumsnet or name changed just to post on this thread

Why lie? You just don't see how unpleasant and unhinged this rant seems, do you? Please stop insulting the victim's family. It's one thing to defend Knox's right to express herself, another to make up stuff about the Kercher family.

That’s not how it went. ECHR is NOW reviewing this specific part. It has found severe violations and so it had to go back to Italian courts and she was eventually acquitted of murder itself. The accusation of Patrick wasn’t isolated accusation , it implicated them both.

That’s not the timeline. Knox was acquitted of murder in 2015. The ECHR ruling came four years later, in 2019, so it didn’t lead to her murder acquittal. Her separate conviction for falsely accusing Lumumba was reconsidered, but she was convicted again and that conviction became final in 2025. A new ECHR application doesn’t mean it has been proven that the police forced her to name him.

Ultimately though, so fucking what? How does that alter the fact that she WAS falsely imprisoned for a brutal murder?

It doesn’t alter that, and I never said it did. But it also doesn’t alter the fact that she falsely accused an innocent man and remains convicted for doing so. It understandably doesn’t sit right with some people that she is now taking part in a show about the very case personally connected to that conviction. That's why it's relevant to some people.

She falsely accused an innocent man under extreme duress, while implicating herself, and it wouldn't even have been a criminal offense in the UK.
You know all this, you just don't like her.

Anyway the stupid petition just gave her greater publicity, she's performing and that's it really.

Didn't, actually. That username was picked a while ago and I name change regularly. I think I may have used it in a 30 day only thread before this but not sure. By all means ask HQ if you want confirmation.

Surprised anyone was committed enough to count the numbers, wondering if this is a wider project than just me! Skin in the game is a wide term so I can't be sure what you mean there, but happy to confirm I don't personally know any of the individuals involved.

'Extreme duress' is your interpretation, not an established fact... Calling the petition stupid, well yeah if those are the words you wish to use and saying it generated publicity doesn’t change why some people objected to the show and still disagree. Not sure why some people like to champion freedom of speech while sneering at other people for exercising theirs.

Because I have the freedom of speech to disagree with your opinion.

Just clearing up your inaccuracy. Yeah, 👍 agreeing to disagree isn't that what debate is about : )

Re the last sentence. You referred to Knox's exercise of her free speech as abhorrent earlier in the thread, and agreed earlier with a post saying those who've posted in support of her right to exercise it at Edinburgh were completely lacking in decency. So maybe if you think back to how you were feeling when you wrote that, it'll help you understand.

I described the show as abhorrent because that is genuinely many people view it. Others are free to criticise my view, just as I’m free to criticise the show. That rather proves my point.. freedom of speech works both ways and doesn’t mean freedom from criticism.

Do you understand that searching someone's posts will only show you when the first non-deleted post was made, not when the name change happened? It sounds like you don't.

Criticism isn't censorship.

What inaccuracy 😂

I have set out the findings of fact made by the Italian courts about the interrogation she faced. To repeat:

• She was interrogated for over 12 hours a day by 12 police officers
• Much of the questioning was in the small hours of the morning
• She was deprived of sleep, food and water
• She was beaten by the police, repeatedly slapped and called a liar
• She did not have a lawyer present as required by Italian law. Note that the police were required to proved a lawyer even if she didn't ask for one
• The interpreter provided was incompetent and believed her job was to help the police to get Knox to implicate herself and Lumumba, in line with the police's theory
• The police made false claims about the evidence and became aggressive when she refused to change her story and implicate Lumumba

The Italian courts have decided that all the above statements are established facts. If that falls short of extreme duress in your book, what does qualify?

Equally, lots of people think the criticisms are stupid. They're both an exercise of free speech which, as you correctly point out, works both ways. This is why I'm surprised to hear you say you can't understand why people who champion free speech, like you have, could also sneer at others exercising theirs, like you have. You did it yourself. That too is free speech.

👍

Hi all.

We’re stepping in with a reminder to please keep the discussion focused on the subject of the thread, rather than on other posters.

This is clearly a subject people feel strongly about and robust disagreement is absolutely fine, but personal remarks, speculation about other posters’ motives or identities, and accusations about whether someone is posting in good faith aren’t helpful and risk derailing the discussion - and in many of those cases, break our Talk guidelines.

We’ve removed a number of posts and may remove further posts where necessary.

YABU. Knox is a victim in all of this and spent 4 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit and then the rest of her life being vilified by the press. I feel terribly for Meredith’s family but I just don’t understand what they stand to gain with their hatred for her? It’s not a zero sum game and Amanda trying to rehabilitate her reputation in whatever way she can should not be seen as slight on Meredith’s legacy. People might not like Amanda but they don’t need to buy her books or see her shows. This petition feels vindictive. Just my opinion - happy to acknowledge others may feel differently.