One Tragic Night (27 page)

Before adjourning, the magistrate ordered that no photographs be taken, even when he left the courtroom. The Pistorius family huddled around Oscar who remained in the dock. Five minutes later Nair returned and Roux continued reading the statement, delivering his client's version of the events that led to the shooting. The courtroom was hushed in anticipation:

Everyone in the room exhaled, almost collectively.

Roux concluded reading the affidavit by placing the standard requirements into the record – that the accused was not a flight risk and would not interfere with the investigation or with the witnesses. Pistorius then confirmed the content of the statement to the court. Roux read three more affidavits into the record: from Oscar's friend Alex Pilakoutas, from Justin Divaris and from Justin's girlfriend Samantha Greyvenstein. These were character statements in defence of the sportsman.

Pilakoutas stated that he considers Oscar one of his closest friends and they see each other several times a week. He recalled how Oscar had told him in
November that he had a met a woman, Reeva, whom he intended taking to the sports awards.

‘Oscar told me that his relationship with Reeva was not like any of his previous relationships. Oscar had really fallen for Reeva and he wasn't afraid to express it. Even though it was still early days in the relationship, Oscar and Reeva were very comfortable around each other and they were happy,' he said.

Divaris told the court that he and Oscar had a mutual love of cars and often spoke to each other on the phone. He had introduced the couple at a track day he had hosted at Kyalami race track and the two had hit it off. Oscar invited Reeva to attend the South African Sports Awards with him and their relationship blossomed, but they were ‘taking things slow'. In December 2012, the couple joined Divaris and his girlfriend, Greyvenstein, on holiday in Cape Town and the relationship became increasingly serious. ‘Oscar would often tell me how much he loved Reeva and that she was a fantastic person who understood him. He said he loved spending time with her and that she could be “the one”. Apart from seeing and speaking to Oscar almost on a daily basis, as a couple my girlfriend Sam and I saw Oscar and Reeva together almost twice a week. They were always happy and you could see that they enjoyed each other's company immensely. The only issue in the relationship that I was made aware of was that Reeva sometimes thought Oscar was moving a little fast. However this did not derogate from the fact that they really truly loved each other. Oscar often told me that Reeva could be the girl he would one day marry.'

Divaris's girlfriend Greyvenstein expressed equally fond words about the accused in her sworn statement. ‘I got on well with Oscar immediately, I found him to be an extremely polite, well-mannered, humble man. He was the epitome of a true gentleman,' she stated.

The statements portrayed Oscar as a loving boyfriend and depicted the relationship with Reeva as one of happiness. The final affidavit to be presented by the defence was that of Oscar's first cousin Graham Binge. The two had spoken on the phone on the evening of 13 February from around 20:25 until 20:45. Oscar was looking at buying his sister Aimee a new car and was seeking advice. They chatted about vehicle theft syndicates and a house Oscar had recently bought in Johannesburg.

Roux concluded his presentation and, with just over an hour left of the court day, Nel asked that the matter be postponed until the following day. The defence did not object. Captain Hilton Botha, the detective in charge of the case, was bracing himself for his time on the witness stand.

Hilton Botha is a short man, fairly well built, with broad shoulders and an olive complexion, evident of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. A career policeman, Botha spent 24 years in the police service, 16 of those as a detective. He strode into the courtroom, a brown police file tucked under his arm and a black suit jacket slung over his shoulder. With his jaw locked tightly, he took his seat in the witness stand. He would be the state's main witness in this bail application and its case would stand or fall by his testimony. The pressure was immense.

Inside the courtroom Oscar's family took up their spots directly behind where the accused would sit. In preparation, the defence team had already set out their files and other documentation on the row of desks in front of them, and several members of the team huddled over what appeared to be the floor plan of Oscar's house – likely to be used to plot movement on the morning in question.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel stood, adjusted his black robe, and began guiding the policeman through his evidence.

Botha had arrived at Oscar's house at about 4:15am that Valentine's Day after receiving a call from his station commander. He found Reeva's body at the bottom of the stairs, bloodied and covered in towels. She had been shot three times and had been declared dead by paramedics.

Nel asked Botha to describe what he found when he entered the home, and the policeman took the court through a virtual tour of the accused's home through a clumsy description of left and right turns. He explained that he had gone through the main door, passed the deceased's body, up the stairs and into the main bedroom where he found a king-size bed, book cases, cupboards and a couch. An overnight bag was on the couch to the left of the bed and a woman's
slippers were found on the same side. He had then walked through a passageway lined with cupboards into the bathroom.

This was the first vivid first-hand account of the crime scene and those in the gallery hung on to every word, anticipating descriptions of a bloody cricket bat and bullet-riddled door. Nel continued to guide Botha through the scene.

Botha explained that he had also found two BlackBerry phones on a cupboard in the bedroom. He had checked to see if any of the four phones had been used that morning and had established they had not. No one had called an ambulance and no one had called the police from any of those devices.

Nel then turned his attention to the bullet-riddled toilet door. Botha described that the top part of the door had been broken, and four shots had been fired through it. Botha stated that Oscar had used a cricket bat to break through the door.

Botha confirmed that he had found a cricket bat on the scene, lying on the
floor, and that the bat had likely been used to break down the door. However, that would only be confirmed once ‘tool markings' had been established by ballistics experts. Nel wanted to know from his witness where the shooter was likely to have been standing, whether the distance the shots had been fired at could be determined and whether the trajectory of the bullets had been established. This would prove to be a crucial exchange and a position that the state would later have to do an about-turn on.

According to his preliminary investigations, the detective believed that the shooter would have to have been standing inside the bathroom, with his back to the basins, when he fired the shots directly at the toilet bowl.

As a disclaimer, Botha told the court that the ballistics and forensics tests still needed to be completed, but from his analysis it appeared that the bullet trajectory was from the top down, suggesting that Oscar was wearing his prosthetic legs at the time of the shooting.