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AP/Press Association Images

Oscar Pistorius says he did not take acting classes to prepare for murder trial

The claim was made by a well-known columnist, citing reliable sources.

A SPOKESWOMAN FOR Oscar Pistorius said suggestions that the Paralympian had taken acting lessons ahead of his emotional murder trial testimony were “totally devoid of any truth”.

We “deny that our client has undergone any ‘acting lessons’ or any form of emotional coaching”, Anneliese Burgess, media manager for the Pistorius family, said in a statement on his website.

Pistorius broke down repeatedly in the witness box as he gave his version of shooting dead girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year.

His vomiting and loud crying have often disrupted proceedings, and some have questioned his sincerity.

Well-known South African columnist Jani Allan claimed he had been coached for his emotional performance.

“I have it from a reliable source that you are taking acting lessons for your days in court. Your coach has an impossible task,” she wrote in an open letter posted on her website on Monday last week.

“Oscar, you are the latest in a long line of faux heroes. Like so many who preceded you, you have betrayed your people and disappointed your fans,” she added.

But the Pistorius family described her allegations as “fictitious”, saying any “suggestion that Mr Pistorius ‘took acting classes’ is totally devoid of any truth”.

“This type of comment makes a mockery of the enormous human tragedy involving the Steenkamp family and our client and his family,” Burgess said in the statement.

Pistorius says he fired four shots through a locked cubicle door thinking Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, was an intruder coming to attack him.

Prosecutors have argued that the shooting came after a row in the early morning hours.

His trial was postponed for the Easter break and will restart on 5 May.

Read: Open Letter to Oscar Pistorius

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    Mute Dec
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    Jun 20th 2020, 7:10 AM

    If the coronavirus hadn’t taken over Brexit is all we’d have been hearing about for the past 3 months……. I’m well aware of the importance of both but I’m sick of Brextit and Covod 19.

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    Mute Michael Kavanagh
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    Jun 20th 2020, 7:29 AM

    @Dec:
    Well – As Leon T said:
    “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you”

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    Mute Dec
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    Jun 20th 2020, 11:51 AM

    @Michael Kavanagh: A Trotsky quote to make a point re the advancement of capitalism…. however unlikely it may be it’s an excellent quote and very apt in this instance! It’s the reason we keep reading and commenting on Brexit and other such articles even when we’re completely disillusioned with them all!

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    Mute willow moon
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    Jun 20th 2020, 11:11 AM

    ‘The Duchy of Lancaster’…..God what is it with these people.

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    Mute Heisen berg1
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    Jun 20th 2020, 9:23 AM

    It just showed how much the readers of the journal are interested in brexit, this storey is up 2 hours and only 2 post about it. I got bord after the scend line .

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    Mute John Daly
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    Jun 20th 2020, 10:38 AM

    @Heisen thing is there is nothing to comment on

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    Mute *.stevem.*
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    Jun 20th 2020, 10:05 AM

    “…which was illuminating in showing how little we still don’t know.”

    Do you even read what you write?

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    Mute Gary Kearney
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    Jun 20th 2020, 12:45 PM

    Boris the Bluffer and his cronies have shown themselves up ti be as useless as most people outside the UK saw them to be.
    1000 people a day dying from Covis-19 but they only count hospital deaths! It keeps the numbers low.
    All the lies they told about Brexit are being shown as that

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    Mute Heidi Cain
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    Jun 21st 2020, 2:49 PM

    @Gary Kearney: there are not a thousand dying each day check worlometers

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    Mute Gerry Ryan
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    Jun 20th 2020, 12:32 PM

    When the boy cried wolf he gained a reputation. British Perfidy has been around for hundreds of years. Indeed Stalin refused to believe the British when they warned him of imminent German onslaught. He thought they were lying. That’s what reputation does.

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    Mute Bríann O Connor
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    Jun 20th 2020, 10:56 AM

    Embarrassing shambles, the entire affair. Full of lies and some misplaced Empire nostalgia nonsense. Johnson is a pathological liar and unfit to be the prime minister.

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