Oscar Pistorius trial part 2

[JillJ72]

To continue from previous thread

We are indeed having that sort of conversation! Yes she may be taking unpaid but that's what I was wondering - how much money do they have? None of my business of course! Maybe Uncle Arnold pays, they are very close to him. I have no idea about their father except apparently they are all a bit estranged from him and according to the paper (must be true then ) he has said he "might" come to the trial at some point.

One of the texts read out last week - she said about seeing ex and OP told her to go ahead, he was doing something else, would see her later.

Sabrina - it's "well documented" but by whom? Tabloids? Having a temper or being jealous isn't by itself enough of a real motive. She did say "I'm scared of you sometimes" and something about "how you snap at me" but only she knew exactly what that meant or how scared she was, of course. Also being so up front about d.v would she really stick with OP after such a short time if he was violent? She wasn't a wife who'd been cowed after years of such treatment.

As for the ex, well there were rumours about contact that evening but it has proven to be untrue. I just don't think hints are enough, not for a murder case and there obviously isn't anything remotely substantial or Nel would have used it. It's obvious OP isn't a saint but I also wonder how much has been exaggerated because he isn't the quiet, humble young man he appeared to be to the general public?

And on that note, I have just seen the time! I need to get up in the morning. I wonder what Nel will get up to tomorrow?

I was going by the texts between Oscar and Reeva mainly, Louise - but you're right, some of it is tabloidy.

They didn't ever explain the blood above the bed.

Pretty much all SA security systems, IME, in houses of that grade/style have panic buttons. Odder if it didn't.

The bedroom door was locked ( wasn't the lock broken?) from the inside, therefore hardly a trauma for them to open and leave the room.

Pistorius advanced toward an unknown noise.
If he was truly frightened of what/who might be down in the ensuite,in a closed toilet, surely he would have first made sure that he protect and secure his loved one.
That is after you ensured that the noise in the toilet wasn't being made by the girlfriend you had only spoken to moments earlier.

Telling Ms Steenkamp to go on to the balcony would make sense
Standing at the bedroom door, guarding the bathroom whilst she made good her escape

Giving the intruder in the toilet a chance to leave, or surrender, or live, or survive seems reasonable. If they then chose not to he could have easily used his firearm.
He had them contained.
He did not need to fire four rounds into a small closed toilet cubicle.
He had other choices.
He chose to end whomever was in the toilets life when he pulled the trigger four times.

Pulled the trigger four times.

He was the judge on that night and didn't show any mercy before killing a person for, at worst, breaking into his house.

Firing four shots into a closed toilet when there had been no threat made to Pistorius looks very much like murder to me.
Who he intended to kill makes no difference to me. He intended to kill when he had many other options open to him.

He could have unlocked the door and locked it behind them again. H

I agree he intended to kill that night. Who it was he intended to kill is irrelevant. There was no known threat.

And he has never been thought of as being mild and humble, he is well known in SA for having a fowl temper, and his outburst at the paralympics is a clear indication he is a sore loser and everything but humble...

DOmestic abuse starts somewhere.
Its pattern isn't the same in each relationship. Often there are elements of abusive behaviour that are similar.
Sometimes it starts as control and coercion, bullying, eroding confidence, being changeable. It is usually sustained and escalating.

Many people who suffer from domestic abuse don't realise it for what it is.
Their partners are said to be ratty. Exacting. Impossible to please. Spoiled. Petulant. Jealous. They say only want 'the best' for them and systematically destroy their confidence whilst doing it for their 'own good'. The abused person wants to be loved and be in love and wants to be happy and to make someone happy. They try to tiptoe toward ever moving goal posts.

We cannot say Pistorius wasn't domestically abusive.
We don't know.
If any girlfriend now said, er...well actually he was really unpleasant or now when I think of it and I am out of the relationship...mmm he did seem domestically abusive. We would not believe her.
She would be ridiculed, not believed and hideously vilified. Exactly what victims are fearful of when talking about domestic abuse.

Well Louise, sorry to pick you up on this, but with regard to dv, everyone starts somewhere don't they? OP obviously had a temper on him, that much is true. I think he is probably volatile. As much as you have a totally open mind as far as OP and his 'crime', I am working hard to keep one!

His answers seem so scripted, like he's been practising day in day out what to say for the last year. He remembers such small detail which I find strange, given what's happened.

He remembers small details of his scripted version. He wasn't able to remember small details of where the fan(s) were plugged in and whether he'd tripped on the fan wires.

Something very odd about him. He seems completely distraught and then suddenly very together all in the same few seconds.

I'm sure he's very upset about what he's done, but his remorse seems more for himself than for taking a life.

I don't think we should be surprised or put off by his 'scripted answers'. He knows his future is on the line, and surely it must be completely normal for him to have been coached extensively in advance. I don't think I'd be going in front of Nel unprepared! Even somebody who is completely innocent is going to want to do their best job to prove their innocence...

I think what's difficult for me to get my head round is that we are far more fixated on whether or not this is a DV murder or not, whereas the actual charges cover lots of eventualities, and in fact even for OP with his version of events he could still be found guilty.

Yep, you don't shoot at a locked door of a toilet cubicle 4 times just to give someone a wee fright. It is almost an irrelevance as to who he thought was behind the door.

There's a few things I don't get, do we know how long he'd lived at this house? It's just in his testimony he says he found walking on the bathroom floor without his prosthetics on really difficult. Surely if this was your own home you'd have it sorted so you could pop out for a wee in the middle of the night without the need to put your prosthetics on. Or if the norm was for you too then why didn't he that night.

Aventurine - saw your comment on the last thread. That is, indeed, what I have read - that the chances of being attacked by an intruder are very high, and there are lots of horrible stories. At the same time there are areas if SA where this doesn't appear to be a big concern. I guess it comes down to where you live as to the risk.

Ronald If any girlfriend now said, er...well actually he was really unpleasant or now when I think of it and I am out of the relationship...mmm he did seem domestically abusive. We would not believe her.

Hmm, come on, do you really believe that? The prosecution would have been falling over themselves to get somebody to come forward saying such a thing.

Re going to the toilet in the dark, I thought she took her phone with her? So could have acted like a light. I do this every night when I need to get up to wee without disturbing anyone. I do it to go and settle my baby too in the night, so it definitely acts as my torch. This seems believable to me.

I have friends in SA and it is meant to be horrendous in terms of violence, one losing his sister to it. I haven't been myself though so can't comment personally on it.

None of this is whether he did it or not, that fact is inescapable isn't it. It's what intent he had and I don't know, there's just parts of his story that seem bizarre to me.
If he did find walking on his bathroom floor difficult, why didn't he put in the right flooring, he was hardly strapped for cash.

If the lighting was bad, why not have some sort of sensored lighting for the reason above.

And the one thing I can't get past - checking on your loved one before you empty four bullets through a door. He didn't and I can't get my head round that at all. Why these bullets too - why does anyone need to inflict that amount of damage on any living thing.

Yes, he will have been coached and that's understandable - up to a point - it doesn't however sound like it comes from the heart to me. Too much snivelling and retching. I can understand a few moments like this during the course of the trial for what is a horrendous crime, but as Cuddlecouch says, he goes from near breakdown to rational speaking in the blink of an eye. It's like children do when they know they've done something wrong - crocodile tears and then a complete turnround.

Whatever verdict is reached, he deserves to go to prison for the trigger happy emptying of 4 lethal bullets into a locked door. If he genuinely did think it was an intruder, he needs a complete change of mindset.

On the light/phone thing... correct me if I'm wrong (probably!) but hadn't he gone to get the fans on the balcony so Reeva didn't need to go in the dark because OP was awake anyway. In which case, she would just put a light on and go to the bathroom. I might have this wrong

Nel has just asked why OP apologised in court, causing a "spectacle" rather than doing it privately. OP doesn't have a real answer.

Sorry - apologised to Reeva's family in court, publicly.

My boss is South African and I asked him about this yesterday. He says that if someone was in his house he would not hesitate to shoot them. Home invasions involving guns and knives are common there and horrible things have happened to people he knows.

It does seem odd that as OP was awake and up that Reeva didn't flick on a light, there was absolutely no need to slouch around an unfamiliar layout with her phone as a torch when she didn't need to, it couldn't have been pitch dark as the blinds were open, he was not on the balcony he was in the bedroom at the time.

As for feeling so scared of intruders, what security was already in place seen as it was a guarded estate and what security did OP put in place apart from having guns around.

Uncomfortable listening to his responses to Nel asking about the texts where Reeva says he "incessantly" picked on her... He doesn't have a response. Surely he could just say, yeah, I was a bit of a dick instead of just trying to make out everything was perfect? There's nothing wrong with admitting that

I don't put the light on in my loo at night though even if no one could see it and be woken by it. I hate the brightness in the middle of the night from normal lights. No idea if she did put the toilet light on though once she was actually in there, but I wouldn't.