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Sky News

Oscar Pistorius walks around courtroom without prosthetics during sentencing hearing

The former athlete is due to be sentenced for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp on Friday.

Updated 4pm

A SOBBING OSCAR Pistorius walked hesitantly on his stumps around court today in a dramatic demonstration of his disability ahead of his sentencing for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Wearing shorts, the double-amputee removed his prosthetic limbs at the request of his lawyer Barry Roux as he made a final plea for Pistorius, who faces 15 years in jail.

The Paralympic athlete held onto wooden benches for support as he hobbled in front of the judge, and appeared in distress as a cushion was provided for him to rest on.
https://www.facebook.com/skynews/videos/1372661996081727/?permPage=1

Roux and state lawyer Gerrie Nel set out their concluding arguments at the High Court in Pretoria, three years after Steenkamp’s death.

Pistorius, 29, shot his girlfriend in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013, claiming he mistook her for a burglar when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

His murder sentence will be handed down on 6 July, judge Thokozile Masipa told the High Court in Pretoria after a three-day hearing.

Vulnerable

“It is three o’clock in the morning, it is dark, he is on his stumps,” Roux said, stressing his client’s vulnerability.

His balance is seriously compromised and… he would not be able to defend himself. He was anxious, he was frightened.

“His perception that he and the deceased were in danger was fortified by finding the open bathroom window. He believed the person in the toilet was an intruder and deceased was at the time in the bed,” Roux said.

In March, the Supreme Court of Appeal found Pistorius guilty of murder – irrespective of who was behind the door when he opened fire with a pistol he kept under his bed.

The standard jail term for murder in South Africa is 15 years, but Pistorius’s sentence may be reduced due to the year he has already spent in prison and mitigating factors, including his disability.

Murder conviction

Roux urged judge Thokozile Masipa to “entertain the correct facts and not to be drowned by the many perceptions” whirling around the case that attracted years of intense public scrutiny.

“The accused has lost everything. He can never ever resume his career,” Roux said.

He lost his future… he has paid physically, he is the shadow of the man he was. He is a broken man, he has paid financially, he has paid socially. He is paying constantly.

South Africa Pistrorius The prison cell in Pretoria, South Africa where Oscar Pistorius stayed for a year

State lawyer Gerrie Nel started his arguments to push for a severe penalty.

“He knew there was someone behind the door,” he said.

“Using a lethal weapon, a loaded firearm, the accused fired not one but four shots to the toilet door,” Nel said. “He failed to provide any acceptable version for his conduct.”

Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide – the equivalent of manslaughter -until the appeal court upgraded his crime to murder.

Judge Masipa, who gave the original verdict, is due to hand down a new sentence for murder after final arguments are completed.

Friday sentencing

South Africa Oscar Pistorius Photo Gallery AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Thursday is a national holiday in South Africa, and the sentence could be given on Friday – with Pistorius facing an immediate return to jail.

Earlier, Kim Martin, Reeva Steenkamp’s cousin, gave the last state evidence in the hearing.

“I never ever heard him say that ‘I apologise for shooting, murdering Reeva behind that door’,” she told the court.

“We just wanted the truth.”

She added that she was uncertain whether Pistorius and Steenkamp were in a truly loving relationship.

Barry Steenkamp, 73, Reeva’s father, had broken down in court on Tuesday as he said Pistorius must “pay for his crime” of shooting Reeva, 29, a model and law graduate.

South Africa Pistorius Sentencing Themba Hadebe Themba Hadebe

Pistorius was released from jail last October to live under house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in Pretoria after serving one year of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide.

He has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage and, during his seven-month trial in 2014, vomited in the dock as details of his lover’s death were examined in excruciating detail.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at Olympic level when he appeared at the London 2012 games.

© AFP 2016

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    Mute Dave Walsh
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:08 AM

    Well paid full-time jobs gone. what’s out is there is mostly short-term or zero hour part time positions. And if you attempt to join a union, your gone.. Not to mention if your older… In a few weeks they people who lost there jobs will be long forgotten by Dublin…

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:03 AM

    Multinationals aren’t the benign overlords of FFG Mythology but relentlessly greedy entities that only care about enriching their own shareholders.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:12 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: The purpose of every business is to create value for a shareholder by delivering value to a customer.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:36 AM

    @Peter Carroll: Yet we treat them as if their purpose is to improve our domestic economy, structuring our entire tax code in their favour while ordinary Irish workers get constantly shafted.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:44 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: No, that’s our (the State’s) purpose. The multi-nationals come here to take advantage of and benefit from the incentives on offer. Everyone knows that that’s the deal.

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    Mute Fifty Shades of Sé
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    Oct 24th 2019, 7:57 AM

    @Peter Carroll: The state is doing a much better job enriching obscenely wealthy companies than it is taking care of it’s own citizens. The Novartis employees will have to live on €200 a week until they find another job, many of them won’t be able to pay rent or a mortgage, but hey, the hedge fund owners who invest in companies like Novartis might be able to buy more private jets so it’s all good.

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    Mute Dave O'Keeffe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 8:33 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: what do you suggest? The vast majority of businesses are run the same.

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    Mute Peter Carroll
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:08 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: I am not making a moral point. You can deal with the State through the ballot box, if you can get enough people to agree with you. Ironically, Ireland has one of the worlds largest aircraft leasing businesses!

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    Mute Fred Coloe
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    Oct 24th 2019, 10:14 AM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: These companies have been employing people for decades allowing said employees to build their own standard of living. Are you serious with your comment? Do you think the workers would have preferred unemployment instead?!

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    Mute Kieran Woods
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    Oct 24th 2019, 3:39 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: Absolute rubbish. Multinational manufacturers are huge net exporters which contribute massively to our economy without which our exchequer would not be able to provide many of its services. They have given hundreds of thousands of well paid jobs which in turn supports local suppliers, contractors and businesses. What should we do, run them away and return to making clay pipes and fiddles and become third world?

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    Mute Richard Mccarthy
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:23 PM

    @Fifty Shades of Sé: So just what do you suggest is the answer,are you suggesting we force multinationals to keep employing people against their will,they wouldn’t even set up manufactoring plants in this country in the first place, it would be much better if people like you with a huge chip on their shoulder got rid of the victim mentality and done something positive.

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    Mute Michael Patrick Newell
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    Oct 24th 2019, 9:00 AM

    Sadly when a country like ours, who over rely on the mercy of these up and leave at any time multinationals, then you always run the risk of huge job culls at times. However while the government can’t be blamed for this, it is a bit of a stomach churner that these large and very wealthy companies are given special treatment in relation to things like the tax they pay here, while home grown businesses are made to pay higher amounts all because they don’t maybe have the same financial muscle or employee numbers, but will likely last longer and not do a runner when a better opportunity in some other low level country presents itself to move operations there and leave its employees jobless…..

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    Mute Corkonian In Dublin
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    Oct 24th 2019, 11:48 AM

    The sad thing is that by announcing the job losses now to start taking place from April / May next year, actually helps Fine Gael’s election prospects in a Spring 2020 election. If those job loses were announced in April with immediate impact, it would be difficult campaigns for Simon “Get me to a BRXIT or other EU meeting to avoid home trouble” Coveney. Like Michéal “I want all the power, but not during BRXIT” Martin, they have failed the city and county of Cork.
    FFG forget that there are people outside the M50.

    6
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