Johannesburg - On Tuesday Oscar Pistorius will discover his fate for fatally shooting his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day last year.
On Sunday, friends of Reeva Steenkamp, the woman Pistorius shot four times through the toilet door in his upmarket house, came out to complain that Reeva’s parents and family had been forgotten in the past seven months with the media frenzy around the disgraced Paralympian.
Former soccer star and TV pundit Marc Batchelor, who fell out with Pistorius in 2012, described to The Star in an exclusive interview on Sunday how the mounting tension between the two sides in court had led to the alleged altercation between Oscar’s sister Aimee and bouncer and former cage fighter Mikey Schultz, who escaped all prosecution after confessing to murdering mining tycoon Brett Kebble.
The former footballer said it was Reeva and her parents who needed to be remembered in the courtroom at the end of the day, not the drama.
Batchelor, who was in court last week with Pistorius’s ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor, Reeva’s friend Gina Myers, businessman Jared Mortimer and Gill Yahav, as well as Schultz, said there had been days when Oscar’s family, particularly Aimee, had stared them down and that there had been tension when they met in and out of court.
Aimee was in tears last week after Schultz made his way onto the Pistorius family seating area in the front bench of the court, allegedly pursed his lips in a kiss and then mouthed at her to f*** off. The family and Oscar then received police protection in and out of court because of the group of friends.
Batchelor said the group had been in court last week because they were part of the State’s witnesses and could have been called by prosecutor Gerrie Nel to testify in aggravation of sentence.
Batchelor said he had also known Reeva and was there in her memory and as support for her parents.
The men and women in the group all have stories of run-ins with Pistorius during which he allegedly screamed and swore at them.
Batchelor said they sat in front of Reeva’s parents, right next to Pistorius and his family, because they were told to sit there by the prosecution in case they were called as witnesses, not because they wanted to intimidate anyone.
“The first day I was in court, Oscar walked near me with his bodyguards. He looked at me and started laughing in my face,” said Batchelor.
He claimed there had been an incident during lunch at a coffee shop on one of the court days when Aimee Pistorius stared at him and then shook her head at him, as if in contempt. Batchelor said he believed this and many smaller incidents had been an attempt to provoke him.
“We were in Gerrie’s office, asking him if we would testify, and Oscar’s lawyers came in saying they needed extra protection for Oscar because of us. Why did he need protection? We weren’t threatening him,” said Batchelor. “When has his life ever been at risk?”
He said Pistorius’s legal team had told him later that day to leave the court quickly, as if he was in danger.
“Then Aimee cries and Oscar and his family are on the front pages as victims, but where was the real victim? Where was Reeva?” he asked.
Batchelor said he felt for Reeva’s parents, particularly her father Barry, who he said was clearly struggling with her death and the court case.
“After lunch, he sat on a back bench because he couldn’t make it to the front. I sat with him and asked if he was okay. He said he was and then he thanked me, saying he felt safer knowing we were there,” said Batchelor.
The Star