Zelda Venter
Pretoria -
“She must have been in such pain and fear. I think about it all the time. I visualise that. I can see it myself.”
This was the heartrending evidence of Barry Steenkamp, father of murdered Reeva Steenkamp, the first witness to testify in the high court in Pretoria on Tuesday on behalf of the State in the re-sentencing proceedings of Oscar Pistorius.
The disgraced former athlete sat with his hands covering his ears, shaking as he cried, while listening to the emotional evidence of the 73-year-old man.
People cried openly in the public gallery, including Reeva’s best friend Gina Myers, while her mother June Steenkamp looked worriedly at her husband who was trembling with emotion.
Steenkamp said his doctor previously advised him against travelling to Pretoria to take the stand during the first round of sentencing. “But I must now give evidence. I think of Reeva every day of my life, morning, noon and night.”
A tearful Steenkamp said their house was filled with pictures of Reeva, the only child he and June had together.
“I talk to her every day. I spend most of my time on the veranda. At 2am or 3am I would sit there, looking at my phone. I virtually every day get messages of support on Facebook and pictures. I have a few hundred messages and pictures (of Reeva) which I look at every day. I don’t wish this on any human being; on anyone in this whole world. It devastated us. I ended up having a stroke.
“We were so proud of her. She helped herself through university and finished her studies with distinctions.” Reeva had then relocated to Gauteng to further her modelling career and aimed one day to open her own business and take care of her parents.
Steenkamp said the day of her murder changed everything. He was out training racehorses when his wife phoned and told him to return home immediately. At first he thought one of their animals had been killed, but he realised June mentioned Reeva’s name and knew she was dead.
Asked about his understanding of what happened in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 when Pistorius fired four shots into the bathroom door behind which Reeva was, he said: “I think there was an argument.”
At that point, Pistorius was sitting in the dock with his ears covered, while soft sobs could be heard in the silent court from the public gallery. Steenkamp spoke of the pain and fear he imagined his daughter felt at the time.
Shaking and crying, the father demonstrated how he tried to pierce himself with his diabetes needles and hit his hands against walls in a bid to try and feel the pain she must have felt.
Steenkamp said he only saw one picture - in court - of Reeva’s wounds. “I saw only one, but I can imagine what it was like. I want the world to see the wounds inflicted on her; the pain she must have gone through. I want this to stop others in future.”
Christmases and birthdays were especially difficult for the family. There was always a seat at the table reserved for Reeva.
Steenkamp told the court the family had not contacted Pistorius, before or after the killing. Reeva also never told them about the relationship.
Pistorius, through his lawyers, tried to contact the family after the murder and he even wrote letters, but the Steenkamps were not ready to meet him. He said he was disgusted when details of financial assistance by Pistorius emerged during the trial, as he had been told it was confidential. Pistorius, through his lawyers, arranged to pay a small monthly amount to Reeva’s parents, but when he offered them R360 000, the family declined it.
Steenkamp said he has heard his wife June cry every night, calling Reeva’s name.
Pistorius’s counsel Barry Roux hardly had any questions for the grieved father. “We are very, very sorry. We can never bring her back.”
He said his client tried to apologise personally but the Steenkamps would not meet with him.
“June has forgiven him, but it does not mean he is exonerated. It has been very difficult for me to forgive. I feel he has to pay for what he did. The time will come when I will want to talk to Oscar, but the time is not now,” Steenkamp responded.
The court also heard the testimony of nursing sister Charlotte Mashabane, who said she was in charge of Pistorius’s treatment for the first six months of his stay in the hospital section of the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria.
She said Pistorius did not want the prison “rub-rub” for his sore hand, but the Voltaren his family had brought him.
He was also upset when a nurse woke him up early one day while he was still sleeping in his prison bed.
Pistorius threw tantrums on both occasions, as well as when prison officials dragged their heels in arranging supplements for his weight loss and sore legs.
Mashabane told the high court in Pretoria on Tuesday that the two of them clashed so often that her superiors told her to hand his case over to another official.
Called as the State’s second witness in aggravation of sentence, Mashabane said Pistorius had an attitude. He threw tantrums and became angry when things didn't go his way, although she simply tried to explain to him there were rules and regulations which had to be adhered to. She described three incidents during which she said he threw tantrums.
Pistorius and Radovan Krejcir shared a wing in the hospital section’s second floor and they were separated from the other inmates. There were only two cells in this section, with the third used as a gym for the pair.
The first tantrum, she said, was in January last year, soon after he ended up in prison. He wanted his supplements and Mashabane said she would send a memorandum in this regard to the officials.
“Oscar entered my office and wanted to know whether I had received feedback. I said I was still waiting. He banged his notebook on my table, while trembling with anger.”
On another occasion he had injured his hand and the prison issued him with “rub-rub” (ointment). However, the athlete wanted his Voltaren and threw the rub-rub back at the sister in an aggressive manner.
The third incident was when he chased her out of the room as he was still sleeping when Mashabane did her ward rounds. “I said good morning. But he pulled his sheet over his head and shouted that I must get out because he was still sleeping.”
Roux said the sister was trying to badmouth his client and make out as if he was an aggressive person.
He said Pistorius simply wanted his medication and it must be borne in mind that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
During a break in proceedings on Tuesday, Pistorius spoke to the ANC Women’s League’s Jacqui Mofokeng. This was the first time since the start of the trial two years ago he approached members of the league. As he passed the bench where Mofokeng sat in the front row, Pistorius stopped and exchanged a few words with her.
Mofokeng later told the Pretoria News he apologised for what he had done.
“He also said he knew that we, as women, had a responsibility towards women. I said yes, because no one had the right to take anybody’s life.
“He asked that we also take responsibility for people with disabilities. I responded that your disability does not make you run away from facts, but that I wish you strength.”
Mofokeng said she shook his extended hand, but that did not change anything for the women who felt he had to go and serve his time in jail.
“I was shocked. I have been here from the start and he feels like approaching me today,” she added.
Pretoria News