Oscar Pistorius trial

[JillJ72]

Starting a new thread as as was pointed out on the other thread, it is not an appropriate place to "talk" and continue to "promote" a really poor excuse for a "joke".

Yesterday's post-mortem evidence was awful; if ever there's a way to get across just how unglamorous guns are, post-mortem evidence is a painfully honest way of doing so.

I listened to the trial live today. My main impression? That Darren Fresco consulted with legal experts to ensure his affidavit did not incriminate him, yet left room for questions that weren't explicitly answered. If he'd paid for that input from legal experts, they didn't sew it up nicely and tightly. I got the impression he was a bit of an unwilling witness really, and had problems remembering some things, yet was very insistent on others. Some good journo feeds on twitter that give different flavours and interpretations.

I'll be honest. I hope this was as OP said, an appalling mistake. But equally so many questions, the constant "whys". And so I am sitting on the fence, listening to argument and counter-argument, and waiting for the judge's final decision.

Never have been in a court of law before, are proceedings usually this long, slow, going round in circles, playing cat and mouse?

Not convinced by the crying & vomiting... it's been a while since the event, his lawyers must have pre-warned him, what would come out in court etc.

I think it's self pity/fear of prison.

I'd be crying and puking to at the thought of life in prison too.

BeCool I was talking about someone accidentally coming in when you were in there rather than on purpose. I do quite often accidentally go in the bathroom when my dh is going to the loo, admittedly it is during the day, but I don't think it's an outlandish idea that someone would lock the loo door at night in a newish relationship.

Sometimes the outlandish may be true.

I wonder if Reeva went to the bathroom and opened the window to get some air, then went into the loo. At the same time, Oscar heard the bathroom window as he came in with the fan and closed the balcony door, curtains, etc, panicked and screamed for the intruder to get out, Reeva panicked and thought there was an intruder and so locked the door...

All conjecture and speculation. I am finding it fascinating. But am hugely mindful too that a a lady lies dead, by appalling error or heat of moment or something else.

I think Oscar is sick because he sees what he is responsible for. I don't think he will have been sick at the time, more on adrenaline overdrive. But I think he will have been after. I think he feels culpable. And rightly so. Remorseful. And rightly so. Castigating himself. Rightly so.

That is a plausible possibility jill. Did OP say he called out at all?

He says (at bail hearing) that he called out on way to the bathroom - so she could have heard that and locked the door.

Jill. Excellent summary

I also think "why didn't he hear her" can possibly be explained by the rush of blood to the ears, by the mixing of noises, by gunshot affecting hearing. An awful horrible desperate mess.

I just don't get why the security guard was so insistent he called Oscar first when the phone records show differently. I don't think there is anything particularly untoward about Oscar calling the Standers before security, given that he is high profile and I am assuming (big assumption!) the arrangement may have been to call them first and they would deal with security.

As we saw at the time, there were a number of sensational - and false - headlines being generated; police talking to the media and giving out or hinting at what subsequently transpired to be false information. Wouldn't you - as the estate manager with a famous person in your walls - want to personally manage any situation arising that involves said famous person, so be the first estate/security person they contact? If there had been a burglary, the estate would have a lot of answering to do.... And Oscar has stated in his original bail application he had been targeted before, he had received death threats. We don't know if they were recent. Yet.

Equally this could be wrong. They could have argued. He could have seen red and lost it.

I agree the number of bullets fired is worrying. However, fear and adrenaline could give that rush. Equally anger and seeing red could give that rush.

My rose-tinted specs hope this was an appalling mistake. My gut instinct at the time was to believe his story, and still is to do so. But I'm very much open to the alternatives, because the truth is imperative in this, and if that is that they argued and he lost it, then he needs to own up to that, because he has to live with what he has done, and live with himself.

I find it odd that he said they went to bed some time after 10pm but the post mortem showed she ate not long before 1am.

It has been somewhat conceded that the eating time window may not be 1am, certainly it had been asserted to assign an element of doubt....

OP has stated that Reeva practiced yoga before going to bed. I've done yoga for years and there is no way you practice yoga on a full stomach or just having eaten.

She may have eaten an early dinner, way before her yoga, but I seriously doubt she would be eating a meal in the hour or 2 (or 3 even) before doing her yoga. Which takes us back to a last meal (by OP's version) at about 7? The forensics are saying 1pm - so out by 5 hours?

It just adds into the "eating" window scenario.

The stomach contents forensics isn't an exact science re timelines, but to be out by at least 5 hours would be very unfortunate.

Or maybe they aren't out.

I am finding myself getting really cross with this trial. There seems to be so much police bungling that getting to the truth whatever that is is going to be impossible.
I think at the end of the day. It will be Oscar shot reeva fact. (Though wouldn't even put it past Roux to try and disprove that too!) Then were his actions those of a reasonablee disabled man.fairly sure Roux will manage to argue they were!
It won't do much for the impression that its fine to go around flashing your gun and shooting your way out of trouble if you are a rich influencial white man.

Also slightly intrigued by his relitives. No sign of his dad. I know they aren't,t supposed to get on but he was there for the bail hearing. He seems incredibly close to his sister. What about Diana his aunt (mums sister)who was their guardian after their mum died and brought Aimee up. She doesn't,t seem to feature. Just Uncle Arnold and the "cousins"

I don't see how anyone can read anything into the locking of the bathroom door, because it's entirely an individual thing. Some people just lock a bathroom door automatically, without thinking about it or particularly noticing that they're doing it. I certainly do.

I imagine a lot of people do, because every time I've given birth there've been great big signs all over the bathrooms telling me not to lock the door in case I need help. I've always locked the door, seen the sign, thought 'oh yeah' and unlocked it again.

I appreciate that's not what everyone does, and I don't think everyone's like me. That's why i don't think anyone can read anything into Reeva's state of mind when locking the door. It may have been intentional, it may not, it may have been habit, fear, embarrassment. This isn't a crime drama where every detail is a plot twist.

Agree Driven. Too many people say "well I would have done X, I definitely wouldn't do Y". But that is irrelevant.

The only think which counts is what OP and Reeva did on that night.
Just because someone says they did something which you wouldn't do, doesn't mean they are lying.

It's impossible to know how evidence is coming across when you can't see the witnesses though. The defence barrister could sound really fierce and dismissive in cross-examination but not really be swaying the witnesses at all.

Calling them liars could as easily be the result of desperation as anything else, and outside US dramas the other side doesn't generally start shouting objections to that-it is what cross-examination is for, presumably.

OP and his father aren't close. Admittedly strange that's he's not there. Is his brother there? I haven't seen him this week (have only seen photos in the paper though)

Shocking evidence about his stolen watch and the him being warned that people might try and take stuff. No wonder his brother turned up with a lawyer to empty his safe.

I must admit (and this has played on my mind all day) I found the photos shown in court and then in the papers today of OP just after the shooting without his prosthetics bloody awful. He hasn't been convicted of anything yet and I thought the media showing them were completely degrading, and humiliating. No prosthetics is like being naked. Was it really necessary for them to plaster that on the media today.

I don't know if he did or didn't kill deliberately just felt that was pretty bloody underhand.

Or is just me!

Just had to get that off my chest. As you were...

I have been watching some of this on the South African TV channel, something at the end of the court session today made me do a double-take. The policeman in the witness box was asked by the defence barrister about his police diary or notebook (the defence also asked the Judge something about that which I didn't hear correctly). The policeman said he didn't have his diary and his notebook was full so he made notes on odd bits of paper at the scene. When asked where these pieces of notepaper are now the policeman stated he had destroyed them. I find this incredible, surely any policeman anywhere knows you do not destroy contemporaneous notes taken at a crime scene? Even if he had transcribed the notes into a notebook later, you still keep the bits of paper to prove the notebook version has not been amended/altered? The police investigation is looking increasingly poor, and that is awful for Reeva, her family and also OP.

On another point entirely, I find the defence barrister's attitude and demeanour difficult, and wonder if that is because trials in SA don't have juries and so they don't have to "perform" to get the jury "on side" as they purely have to convince the judge?

I am not convinced that OP deliberately set out to murder Reeva, but am also finding the alternative scenario hard to comprehend.

Such high profile yet so many basic errors. You'd want to be scrupulous, squeaky clean about every millimetre of detail in this.

Being so lackadaisical does no one any favours at all.

There are a few things that have stood out to me:

1. OP clearly was stable on his stumps to have gotten out of bed and gone out to the balcony and brought fans in.
2. If he could do that in the dark, surely he would have been able to see if Reeva was in bed.
3. If Reeva must have gone to the toilet while he was getting the fans in, she would have no reason not to turn lights on to ensure she did not wake OP. He was already awake
4. If he called for Reeva and she had her phone, would she not have phoned police?
5. If phoning the estate manager was first port of call, wouldn't he have shouted to her to phone him not the police?
6. He went and got the gun from under the bed. If I get something from my bed, dark or not I know if someone is in it. Wouldn't he have lent on the bed to bend down?

ha ha. sorry. Don't mean to laugh... but it's Africa.

lol. This is the norm...
I would think it wouldn't good for the police to tie a man to a car and drag him along until he died. again .... S.Africa!
Or
for the police to open fire on striking workers. .. but again. .. la la S.Africa!

and. . just so you all know. It's would not be weird to open fire on a potential intruder in your home. It is certainly not the first time a loved one has been killed in this manner.

Living in Africa makes it a whole lot easier to lift that CZ75 and empty the magazine of hollow points into someone who was in your house and who, you believed, to be a danger.

Secure complex means nothing. I know people who live in very secure complex and have been woken up with a gun to their head.

I am the ONLY one of 6 siblings who has not been a victim of armed robbery. Imagine living life that. that Fear is very real. Unless you live in SA you cannot even begin to imagine what you would do in that situation. Here , if you get broken into there is seldom a threat to your life. In South Africa .. it's almost a certainly. The mindset is very different.

Did he intend to kill Reeva?
... I don't know
Will he get off?
... Probably

He was wearing his prosthetics in that picture though onstep? If it's the same one I saw from today where he is shirtless

AfricanExport, I find the restrictions on people living their lives in South Africa difficult to imagine. During a business trip a very good friend of mine took to Jo'burg he was invited out to dinner a short distance from his hotel and said to the people he was meeting "I'll just walk and meet you there" and they were horrified and told him in no uncertain terms that he would be collected by car and taken door to door. All of the fathers at that meal explained to him how none of their children could just "pop out" to the corner shop for a paper and a pint of milk. However, South Africa is not unique in that regard, there are numerous places around the world where life is similar we forget how lucky we are in the UK sometimes.