Oscar Pistorius Trial part 9

[JillJ72]

Starting a new thread as part 8 is nearly full, here - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2080468-Oscar-Pistorius-Trial-Part-8

And people here are alleging OP murdered RS and do no agree with the judge as well as saying OP lied throughout. Therefore if a man murders his girlfriend it is DV whether you choose to label it or otherwise.

Yonic screwdriver, the doctor said that it was unintentional, he was very clear that he believed it was an accident and from Pistorius' reaction he believed that he had not intended to kill her, and the judge accepted this entirely.

But it doesn't really matter, if it had been the other way round and he had said 'I don't believe his remorse was genuine, I think he meant to kill her' and the judge used that to acquit him it would still be completely unreliable as a piece of evidence.

It's utterly subjective, it's not evidence. It's an opinion. Nobody can say with any certainty whether the emotions displayed by another human are genuine or feigned. You just can't do it, nobody can unequivocally declare one way or another. So the judge just shouldn't have relied on that evidence, it was subjective and unreliable.

And when she dismissed witness testimony as inherently unreliable in the prosecutions case but accepted it without quibble from the defence she directly contradicted herself.

It isn't necessarily DV when a man murders his partner. He could accidentally run her over. He could drop something on to her. Their genders do not automatically make it DV.

I also think it's interesting that much was made of the context of events for OP. He is disabled. He has a fear of burglary. He lives in a country with high crime rates.

If the court had stopped for one second to look at the context of Reeva's life then it would have found she had been in an abusive relationship in the past; she had been caught up in a burglary before; she campaigned about domestic violence; she lived in a country where DV is rife.

So one lived in a country with high crime rates. The other also faced the additional risk of a country with high DV rates. I think that perhaps that should have been mentioned or taken into account because ultimately there wasn't a burglar but there was a woman killed by her partner.

I don't know what happened that night. I do know (because the Judge said it in court) that OP lied. That doesn't mean he was guilty but it means it's so much harder for anyone to know the truth. I'm glad he is going to prison. I hope he serves more than ten months and I'm glad that Reeva's family feel they received justice. Ultimately I think that's what is important.

I have been following the case from start to finish and have been interested to see how similar incidents have happen in South Africa such as the case of Mr Visagie who shot his daughter while backing out of the driveway in the early morning hours because he thought a thief was stealing their car. And the case of another South African man Glenn Boshoff that shot and killed his 8 year old daughter through his bedroom door as he thought an intruder when attempting to get into the bedroom. There was also Mr Mdunge that heard a noise in his bathroom and thought it was an intruder and ended up killing his wife. I am uncertain of the outcome of the Boshoff case but Mr Visagie was not prosecuted. Mr Mdunge was give an 8 year sentence wholly suspended for 5 years. People say by finding Oscar Pistorius not guilty of murder will give people the idea that it is okay to shoot and kill without repercussions. It seems from these three cases mentioned above that these people behaved in a similar way as Oscar Pistorius yet the outcome for Mr. Visagie and Mr Mdunge was very different. Neither of the other gentlemen ascertained where their loved ones were or fired a warning shot. It goes to show that people do behave in reckless ways when they fear for their property let alone life. I have been baffled as to why the Pistorius case is being looked at from such a different angle. It's as though he is being measured by an entirely different scale. I feel the media coverage of this case has been criminal. If they had reported on the defense side of the case and Mr Roux's cross examination of the witnesses maybe people would have a different opinion of the case. Oscar Pistorius was deemed guilty before the end of the bail hearing and it didn't matter what was presented during the trial. The Judge and Accessors made a unanimous decision and a verdict delivered. The judge no more than got to her chambers before it was splashed all over the headline that "the judge got it wrong" and death threats followed. The very same people that were calling for Oscar Pistorius head were making death threats against the judge. The state would surely appeal the decision the headlines read. Oscar Pistorius has finally been sentenced to prison and perhaps the cell the prison was preparing for his yesterday (per the headlines yesterday) will be the safest place for him.

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"isn't necessarily DV when a man murders his partner. He could accidentally run her over"

That would be an accident, not murder.

." He could drop something on to her"

That might be an accident or murder.

Well said Upnorth. The feverish reporting and the attitude on a lot of the OP threads on MN have taken the line of guilty but got away with it, regardless of the facts relating to this case and in a country totally different from our own. On the news just now was a SA women's group saying the same things as a lot on here and I think it's all coloured by the DV issue.

The other cases of mistaken shootings resulting in death illustrate the high level of anxiety re crime in SA (there have been similar shootings in America) but OP has been depicted as an abusive man who deliberately killed his girlfriend with no significant evidence to support this and lots of circumstantial evidence pointing either way.

Portraying this terrible event as a domestic murder strikes a cord with many women and is skewing the argument.

Of course to us in the UK it is absurd to imagine this being possible but a friend if DH (both licensed to carry shotguns) was out in a quarry shooting rabbits when a large man wielding a metal bar came out of the bushes and rushed towards him, hitting one of his dogs in the process, screaming he was going to kill him! Complete stranger and I suspect with MH issues. Did he get shot? Of course not! DH friend ran for his life despite his loaded shotgun. General consensus amongst DH and friends was that even if he had shot him in the foot to stop his running he would have been arrested and never seen his guns again. That is not the attitude in SA.

Reporter: Do you think justice has been served?
Reeva's mother : Yes.

Why do so many people think that they understand the South African judicial system and this specific case, so much better than the SA professionals who conducted it?

Well I don't as I agree with the verdict and sentence.

I think the family are just relieved he's gone away at all, considering the hard push towards a suspended sentence. Every person I know irl thinks they fought, he lost his temper and chased Reeva into that bathroom, that she was hiding in fear of him. Someone on Radio 5 has just said it too - not sure who it was (but it was a man) - but he said that it was 'inconceivable' to him that he didn't know it was Reeva in the bathroom.

Apparently the next Olympics he can compete in will be 2020. Let's hope there'll be no repeat of his behaviour in London 2012, when he had a toddler's tantrum about losing and starting chucking his blades around.

Everyone's a little bit safer around him now, however, since he won't be allowed to own a gun again.

Well their POV flies in the face of the verdict and most of the evidence but there you go.

Let's hope your friends are never in the position of waking up at 3 am to a burglar in the house and not daring to pick up a weapon in case they injure someone.

It's much more exciting and hollywoodish to imagine an argument/murderous intent than someone unable to defend themselves using unreasonable force.

And I can just see the picture. OP and RS (him without his 'legs') having a raging argument, propped up on pillows, after a romantic valentines evening together. Must have been a long argument to last until 3 am and all lying in bed as OP was not wearing legs. Unless RS was being harangued by someone apparently 4 foot tall.

Me, I take the simpler view that he was terrified they were about to be hacked to death by a machete wielding intruder.

Let's hope your friends are never in the position of waking up at 3 am to a burglar in the house and not daring to pick up a weapon in case they injure someone.

Huh - ok - Let's hope you never accidentally shoot a loved one through a door because you're so scared of intruders.

And get your facts right - they had not just spent a romantic valentines evening together - he shot her in the early hours of the morning of Valentine's day.

At the end of the day, no matter who was behind that door, or no matter who he thought was behind it, 5 years for intentionally killing someone is no way near justice. He has taken someone's life, wether it was Riva or an intruder is irrelevant, a life is a life.

3 am. Presumably they had a romantic evening unless they just thought they would sleep together because she missed the last bus home.

NoMarymary - OK.... so you seriously believe OP's version of events?

And her valentine card to him was very romantic.

Yes, a life is a life. But if the life hiding behind your bathroom door is intent on robbing you and is quite prepared to hack you and your girlfriend to death in the process, I for one wouldn't hold that life very dear.

Me and the judges.

But in conspiracy land, let's not let the truth cloud our judgemental meanderings

Well presumably if you had the intention of robbing someone and hacking them to deat you wouldn't lock yourself in the bathroom... But let's say you did... Until you actually come out from that bathroom and attack someone, you don't deserve to die

Maybe it was romantic, maybe not. I thought you wanted to talk about stuff there was evidence about!

Tend to agree with Ina - firing four shots into a confined space with someone in it will kill them and is intended to kill them.

And what evidence was there that person behind the door had a machete?

So someone with stumps for legs who could not run away should allow an intruder a fighting chance of murdering him and his girlfriend whether with a machete or a gun? Would you?

OP didn't know the door was locked. He heard a noise in the bathroom and realised the window was not barred and there were ladders outside, so easy access for an intruder.

The person behind the door didn't have a machete, gun or sub atomic particle weapon, but OP didn't know that. That's the whole point.

If I lived in a country with a murder rate way above that if the USA maybe I would shoot first if I was convinced it was an intruder.

Oscar's own evidence in the dock was not of a particularly romantic evening. They ate chicken at 7, went to the bedroom, she did yoga, he was on the ipad - then he fell asleep.

But my opinion is that it was actually far less romantic than that.

I'm not sure the judge believed him - she hasn't said so. She called him an unreliable witness - but was very clear that when the accused can come up with an 'alternative version' of events, that puts reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case, and the court has to commit. It was more a point of law, than believing his story.