So now at least we know. We know what a woman’s life is worth. The trial of Oscar Pistorius has been on our TV screens for six months, during which time, the Olympic hero, between fits of amateur histrionics, tried to claim that he suffered from “generalised anxiety disorder”. Psychiatrists slapped that one down, though they did say that Pistorius was “jealous and insecure”.
Reeva Steenkamp knew all about that. In a text message, the law graduate-turned-model told her boyfriend: “I am scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me.” Judge Thokozile Masipa, in one of several cockeyed decisions, discounted Reeva’s concerns and declared that such texts were part of “normal relationships”. But Reeva had good cause to be scared. She was dating a volatile athlete who was notoriously quick to anger, who had threatened to shoot a national footballer who crossed him, who had spent a night in jail for assaulting a woman at a party at his house (case dropped).
A man who, according to the testimony of Samantha Taylor, a former girlfriend, would “punish” her by driving his Porsche at 200mph, put her on the Naughty Step and lock her in his apartment for hours at a time. Taylor, who went out with the Paralympian for 18 months, was once so frightened Oscar would kill her that she hid his gun. The same gun that put four bullets into Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year and ended her life. And for this casual monstrosity, Pistorius was handed a five-year term, of which he will serve only one sixth in jail. After that, he will be under house arrest and will be free to see family and friends, to feel the sun on his face, to make love to another blonde.
For Pistorius the bereft, Pistorius the remorseful, Pistorius who was so distressed about losing his soul-mate that he had trouble getting his facts straight, is said to have started a relationship with another model. Well, fancy that. The prison term has been widely criticised in South Africa, where a sarcastic new hashtag has begun circulating on Twitter: #ThingsLongerThanOscarsSentence. Truth and the law, however, are very different things, as we saw back in the O.J. Simpson case. The only good thing about the Pistorius trial, we reassured ourselves, was his story was so ludicrous he was bound to lose. Although Steenkamp was no longer around to give her side, you could deduce a lot from her actions. Obviously, a woman who gets up in the middle of the night to have a wee does not lock herself in the loo. Not when that loo is down a corridor and across the other side of a bathroom. She might possibly shut the loo door, out of habit, a small reflex of privacy, but why would she lock it? Who did Steenkamp think was going to try to open the toilet door in the middle of the night? Come to that, why would she take her phone with her to the loo? (To call someone furtively, to text?)
The only reason a woman would bolt herself in a distant toilet cubicle in the middle of the night in her boyfriend’s flat is because she wants to keep someone out. Because she is afraid. And Steenkamp was frightened on February 14, 2013. Nothing I have heard over the endless weeks of the Pistorius circus has persuaded me otherwise. The pathologist who examined her shattered head and body reckoned that the 30-year-old was cowering on the floor when she was shot, not sitting on the loo at all. Trying to protect herself from a man who decided that an appropriate response to a “burglar” who had locked himself in the toilet — they always do that, don’t they? — was to pump four bullets through the door.
Not surprisingly, Pistorius had some trouble settling on the least damning version of events. After all, how could he possibly explain not yelling out and checking his girlfriend was safe before shooting the intruder? Anyone would do that: “Hey, Reeva, there’s someone in the toilet.” “Don’t worry, baby, it’s only me.” In the end, Pistorius decided that he did yell at Reeva to call the police, but just didn’t notice that her side of the bed was empty. Remember, it was a small bedroom. Now think of how many times you got up in the night and didn’t notice if your partner was missing. I make that never.
To me, it was clear Pistorius was unhinged and as guilty as sin. Here was a possessive control freak with a track record of terrifying women and illegal firearms use. For crying out loud, even his own defence team suggested he needed help for anger-management issues! He and Steenkamp had a fight that night: Two different neighbours said they heard shouting and a woman screaming.
In another of her dazzling, counter-intuitive deductions, Judge Masipa said that the neighbours had probably heard Pistorius screaming. As they had never heard Pistorius scream before, she said, they could not know how high-pitched his screams were. On the day that Pistorius was found not guilty of the murder of Steenkamp, I got a text from a friend who is both a law lecturer and Masterchef fan. “I want that Judge Masipa at my trial when I stab Gregg Wallace,” she said.
The verdict of “culpable homicide” was a joke. The very least Pistorius could hope to get away with. According to Masipa, his intention to kill the person locked inside the toilet could “not be proven beyond reasonable doubt”. Given that Pistorius knew there was someone on the other side of the flimsy internal door and was well aware of what bullets could do, it’s hard to imagine he could not reasonably have foreseen that death would be a probable outcome.
Still, none of that matters any more. Steenkamp is dead and buried, blown apart by her ticking-timebomb of a boyfriend. Pistorius will do the sort of stint in prison you give to a petty thief, not someone who has stolen a young woman’s life from her.
Reeva is just a statistic now. In South Africa, every eight hours a woman is killed by her husband or lover. There is an epidemic of domestic violence. And a black female judge, who declared that Steenkamp being scared of Pistorius was part of a “normal relationship” has done nothing to challenge that deadly state of affairs. Shame on her. The day after Steenkamp died, she was due to wear black in a “Black Friday” protest against South Africa’s appalling incidence of rape and violence against women. The event was inspired by a 17-year-old girl who managed to identify her attacker, an ex-boyfriend, before she died. Sadly, Steenkamp did not get that chance. So those of us who can must bear witness for her.
On the day that Pistorius is released from jail, I suggest that anyone who minds that abusers can still get away with murder should wear black. In doing so, we mourn not only the lovely Steenkamp, but all the other women snuffed out by their boyfriends and husbands. For this, beyond reasonable doubt, is an outrage.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2014
