Judge Thokozile Masipa, who is hearing the case, originally delivered a manslaughter verdict, but the conviction was upgraded to murder by the court of appeal last December. Then there was the other [Oscar] without his prostheses who was a vulnerable, anxious man. More recently I saw a third Oscar that really has nearly given up.
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He has pictures of her throughout his home and speaks to her daily, he said, and “little things throughout the day” still remind him that “Reeva is with me all the time”.
He told the Pretoria court that he misses his daughter every “morning, noon and night” and that since the slaying, he has developed a habit of sitting on his veranda in the early hours of the morning, smoking cigarettes and looking at photos of his daughter that were sent to him by well-wishers.
Shaking with emotion, the father of the murdered girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius demanded the athlete be made to “pay for his crime”.
“Oscar has to pay for what he did”, Steenkamp said, adding that he would like to talk to the double-amputee former track star in private at a later stage. “When I see feathers or something like that, I think Reeva would have liked that”, he told the court.
He said: “What she must have gone through in those split seconds”. An emotional Steenkamp answered questions from both the prosecution and the defence and said his wife’s Christian faith compelled her to forgive their daughter’s murderer. I visualise it. I can see it myself. “Our lives have changed completely”, he said, when asked how Steenkamp’s death had affected his life.
On Monday, the first day of the hearing, his defense presented a psychologist who said that he is now a “broken man” and needs hospitalization, not imprisonment.
At his original trial, Pistorius had argued he mistook Reeva Steenkamp for an intruder. Pistorius held his head in his hands and appeared to be sobbing during the testimony at the High Court in the South African capital Pretoria.
Barry told the court that the tragic thoughts, had at times in the past, led him to self-harm.
When Scholtz claimed Pistorius would be unable to testify in the hearing, saying, ” I don’t think he is able to be a witness in this trial: his condition is severe”, Nel retaliated by asking how Pistorius had been able to give an interview to Britain’s ITV, due to be broadcast next week. “That’s why I think Pistorius will get a break”.
On the verge of tears, he spoke of how Steenkamp was the only minor child who lived with the family when they resided in Port Elizabeth.
“June has forgiven him so that she can carry on with her life”.
After a almost 50-day trial stretched over seven months, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide (much like manslaughter) in September 2014. The sentencing hearing will continue Wednesday and a decision could come by the end of the week.
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Barry told the court that she had never told her father about the relationship with Pistorius before her death.
