Pretoria - The parents of slain model Reeva Steenkamp will now maintain a dignified silence after the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday sentenced former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius to an effective six-year jail term for her murder.
“They only wanted the law to run its course, and that has happened. They abide by the ruling,” Dup de Bruyn, lawyer for Reeva’s parents Barry and June, told reporters shortly after the sentence.
Read: #OscarPistorius will not appeal his sentence
“They will, from now on, have a dignified silence. We cannot change anything.”
Asked whether the Steenkamps were disappointed with the six-year jail term, De Bruyn declined to comment. He, however, said he had strongly advised the family not to appeal the sentence.
Read: Masipa gives #OscarPistorius 6 years for murder
“We cannot decide for the prosecution. As I’ve explained to the family, it is not so easy to go on appeal with a sentence. Even if the family doesn’t agree with the six years (jail term), they cannot just interfere with it,” said De Bruyn.
“For the family to interfere, it must be a shockingly disappropriate sentence and they say we could have imposed this or that. But we are not entitled to interfere with the decision of the judge imposing sentence.”
Read: ‘Oscar got away with murder’
Mobbed by reporters shortly after Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down sentence, the Steenkamps declined to directly speak to the media.
“I cannot comment. We are leaving that to the prosecution,” said Barry as he walked away with his wife.
On the other hand, the African National Congress Women’s League was adamant that the six-year jail term handed to Pistorius on Wednesday was a slap on the wrist.
“We are wearing black on our heads, mourning all the women who died at the hands of their partners. It’s like we anticipated that we will be hurt further. We are embarrassed and (feel) very insulted at the same time,” ANCWL Gauteng spokesperson Jacqui Mofokeng told reporters.
“At least a ten-year sentence would have meant something to us. The judge was speaking of a 15-year sentence. I don’t get it. The judge has now only added one year to the five years she sentenced him for culpable homicide.”
She said the women’s formation was deeply disappointed by the judge’s determination.
“It does send the wrong message out there. It is very bad. It’s an insult to women, that is what I can say,” said Mofokeng.
She said it was unfair for Pistorius to hide behind his disability when he had committed such a grave offence.
“Are we saying if people with disability do wrong, we should judge them according to disability? It’s not supposed to be like that. Remember this is the man who said he would run (compete) with able bodied people? He was supposed to get a fair sentence like an able bodied person,” Mofokeng lamented.
Pistorius had been led to the cells below the court after being sentenced to six years imprisonment for the 2013 murder of Reeva.
Judge Masipa said the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors. She said she had taken into account the fact that Pistorius had already spent a year behind bars and was a first-time offender who was unlikely to re-offend.
These factors justified her deviation from the minimum prescribed sentence of 15 years for murder.
In December last year the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein overturned his conviction of culpable homicide and converted it to murder.
African News Agency