To love them is not to know them

The protestations of Amanda Knox's parents that their Jesuit educated daughter is not only innocent of murder but a model citizen are not so surprising. Knox, sentenced last night to 26 years for the killing of Meredith Kercher, had a rather different reputation in Perugia from her squeaky clean image back in Seattle. Similarly, her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, described by his father as 'an innocent', turns out to have been a keen collector of swords who boasted on the net that he could be wild and 'totally crazy'.

And here in the UK, missing chef Claudia Lawrence is alleged to have had a number of men in her life, some married, of whom her family knew nothing. Finally, this year Ron Smith gave up his thirty-year battle to prove that his daughter Helen was murdered. No evidence was found that she died of anything more conspiratorial than a fall from a balcony at a party in Saudi while - probably - drunk.

Did you tell your parents about all the sex, drugs and alcohol you had?

Do you know anyone who did?

If you want to know how someone really lived, ask anyone but their family.