Oscar to hear his fate on Tuesday

Oscar Pistorius, who will learn his fate on Tuesday, has been hammered, denigrated and maligned and lives with unbearable guilt and grief, therefore, no sentence imposed by the court for the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp could be worse than what the bilateral amputee has had to live through for the past 18 months, his advocate argued.

Arguing in mitigation of a sentence that Pistorius should not go to prison, defence advocate Barry Roux SC said that on the day of Reeva’s death, there was an accused – Pistorius – and a victim – Steenkamp – but that shortly thereafter, the accused became the victim because false evidence in his bail application had led to him being labelled and charged as a cold-blooded murderer.

Instead, the former international icon was a man who, in an anxious and vulnerable frame of mind, caused the death of the person he loved because he had truly believed his life as well as that of Steenkamp had been in danger, he said. 

Roux said a suitable sentence would be correctional supervision and that the Paralympian
never consciously acted unlawfully, although he had been negligent. “The court must look at his action from his point of view, there had been no deviousness on his part,” Roux said, adding that humanity should form part of our legal system.

Roux strongly lashed out at the media, saying that inaccurate and malicious reporting had crushed Pistorius, who had lost everything and had gone from an international icon to being denigrated and called a cold-blooded rage killer.

“He is now down and out. Broke and broken and there is nothing left of this man,” Roux argued, but said far worse was that for the rest of his life he would have to live with the guilt and knowledge that he had caused the death of the woman he loved.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said she would disregard Roux’s references to media reports in his
argument.

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