Avatar photo

By


Pain caused by Reeva’s death won’t go away – Roux

The pain caused by the death of Reeva Steenkamp at the hands of her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius was far worse than any punishment for the athlete, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Friday.


“Of course when you caused the death [of a loved one] by negligence… there is the grief of the loss, there is something far worse. There is that excruciating pain that you caused that death,” Barry Roux, SC for Pistorius said.

“It’s an emotional pain that is deep and will not go away.”

He said that Pistorius’s did not have a process of grief as a person who lost a loved one would normally have.

He said Pistorius disclosed his version in his bail application because he wanted to tell his story early on and not later so people would think he made up a story.

On September 12, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide for the Valentines Day 2013, shooting of Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse. The court found him not guilty of murdering Steenkamp.

Pistorius shot Steenkamp through the locked door of the toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him.

She was hit in the hip, arm, and head.

Roux said that Pistorius lost everything and what he was subjected to after Steenkamp’s death was far worse than any punishment.

Pistoius paid for 18 months for premeditated murder, he said.

“He found himself alone,” Roux said.

“No court punishment can be worse than the last 18 months.”

The State initially charged Pistorius with premeditated murder.

Pistorius was found guilty of firing a pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Johannesburg in January 2013. He was found not guilty of shooting through the open sunroof of a car in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012, and of illegal possession of ammunition.

– Sapa

Follow @CitiReporter on twitter for live updates from inside and outside court or click here for the live twitter feed.