A defence lawyer at the appeal of Amanda Knox compared her to Jessica Rabbit in her closing remarks on Tuesday.

Giulia Bongiorno, the lawyer for co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito - Knox's ex-boyfriend - described Knox as the voluptuous cartoon character "because she looks like a femme fatale, but she is a loyal and loving woman".

Bongiorno explained that Jessica Rabbit is not bad, "just drawn that way", in a bid to secure an acquittal for Knox and Sollecito, as she asked the jury to "abandon imagined fantasies" about them.

Amanda Knox, 24, was convicted in 2009 alongside Sollecito, for the sexual assault and murder of the British student Meredith Kercher. The 21-year-old was discovered half-naked with her throat cut in the house she shared with Knox.

Bongiorno has previously sought to appeal to the jury with film analogies. In the original murder trial, Knox and Sollecito insisted that they were watching the film Amelie and having sex at Sollecito's house as their alibi. Bongiorno then compared Knox to the eponymous character, an innocent girl with good intentions.

Both Knox and Sollecito are appealing their convictions. A verdict is expected in early October.