KNOX: MY SEVEN LOVERS AND HOW POLICE BEAT ME

She told the court how, when she was arrested a few days after the killing, prison medical staff asked her to take an Aids test which was repeated twice.

“They told me it was positive and they said I had Aids,” she said. “I was left shocked. I didn’t know how that could be possible They told me to think about it hard and so I wrote in my diary about all the partners I had had.”

Asked how many by her lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova, she said: “Seven. I was going through them and saying, I made love to him, well he can’t have it, and he can’t have it.”

She added: “I was really worried. Mamma mia, I was crying, I thought I was going to die and not be able to have any children.

“They took the test three times over two weeks and I was under so much pressure because I thought I had Aids.”

Knox, from Seattle, wore her long hair tied back and arrived for the hearing flanked by two female warders. She smiled and waved at her father Curt, who sat at the back of court with his new partner Cassandra.

She described calmly and methodically how she had met Rudy Guede – already convicted and serving a 30-year jail term for Meredith’s murder – through friends and had then gone to a party with him.

On the night Meredith died, she said, she had watched a film at Sollecito’s house, smoked a marijuana joint with him then had sex.

She said: “I told Raffaele that I wanted to watch a movie so we went to his place. I sat on the bed, he sat at his desk. He prepared the joint and then we smoked it together. First we made love, then we fell asleep.”

She last saw Meredith, from Coulsden, Surrey, on the afternoon of November 1, at their home when they talked about a Halloween party they went to the night before.

Sollecito then arrived at the house. He and Knox had something to eat while Meredith was in her room, Knox told the court.

“She then left her room, said ‘Bye’ and walked out the door. That was the last time I saw her,” she said.

The trial continues.