One Tragic Night (28 page)

After a query from the magistrate, it was agreed that plans of the house would be projected onto a big screen to make it easier to illustrate the events. The defence team hooked a laptop up to the projector, and a floor plan in blue ink was soon visible on a white screen behind the prosecution team. The diagram showed the upper level of Oscar's home – with his bedroom, balcony, passage and bathroom marked out on the plan.

Pointing to the diagram, the officer explained how there was just one small window in the toilet cubicle and no other way of escaping the room. Botha then took the court back to Oscar's bedroom and described how a person walking from the balcony – where Oscar said he had retrieved a fan before hearing noises in the bathroom – would have had to pass the bed where Oscar believed Reeva was sleeping.

Nel moved on, enquiring what else the police had found in Oscar's bedroom.

‘On the cabinet below the TV we found two boxes of steroids and …' said Botha. Gasps rippled through the stuffy courtroom. Nel quickly interrupted his witness.

‘Steroids or testosterone?'

‘Testosterone,' clarified Botha. ‘Testosterone and needles and injections. It's not anabolic.'

Oldwadge quickly looked up from taking notes and squinted at Botha, a look of utter disbelief on his face. It was a significant revelation, and one that would support the so-called roid-rage version as previously reported.

Nel then read from Oscar's affidavit in which he claimed he was worried about crime in South Africa and had fallen victim to crime on several occasions. Botha testified that despite these claims, there was no police record of Oscar ever opening a case in which he was the victim of crime.

The prosecution shifted focus to an incident at Tashas restaurant, a popular and trendy eatery at the Melrose Arch shopping complex in Johannesburg. Nel was attempting to create an image of a volatile young man who was prone to violent outbursts, trigger-happy and overly enthusiastic about firearms.

It had emerged that Oscar and a group of friends, including training partner UK athlete Martyn Rooney, professional boxer Kevin Lerena and Darren Fresco were sitting at a table at the restaurant when Fresco handed Oscar his firearm. Oscar was handling the weapon under the table when it accidentally went off, the bullet fortuitously lodging in the floor. Botha said the Paralympian feared
bad publicity as a result of the incident and convinced Fresco to take responsibility for the accident.

Nel asked Botha about why someone who slept with a firearm under his bed and was apparently fearful of crime would fall asleep with a sliding door to the bedroom left wide open.

Botha said he found the holster for the firearm on the same side of the bed on which he had found Reeva's overnight bag and slippers. It seemed that the prosecution was now exploring the implausibilities of Oscar's version of events. How, then, did he not see that Reeva was not in the bed at the time he unholstered his weapon?

‘I would have tried to find out where my girlfriend was because he was on her side of the bed, and tried to get her behind me and maybe leave the room …' testified Botha.

Nel then guided the investigating office to statements taken by witnesses in the housing complex and what the neighbours saw and heard. Some claimed to have heard the couple fighting in the hours leading up to the gunshots ringing out.

Botha confirmed that a neighbour claimed to have heard what sounded like fighting and loud talking between 2am and 3am, before hearing gunshots. Crucially, Botha claimed a witness saw lights on at the athlete's home prior to the shots. Nel, it seemed, was reaching a crescendo.

The state had built its case against bail and, by all accounts, it was looking solid. But as is so often the case with the drama of legal argument, only one side had been presented and an alternate picture was still to emerge. Doubt would be cast on Hilton Botha's interpretation of the evidence and his own credibility would also be called into question.

With the skill and ease of an experienced criminal advocate, Barry Roux
began to dismantle Botha's testimony, block by block. Why did he testify that Oscar had not given him a version on the scene? How did he know how far the bullets travelled? Had he tested the visibility in the bedroom at night? Did the witnesses say they specifically heard Oscar or Reeva's voices?

Oldwadge was grinning from ear to ear, staring smugly at the investigating officer as he was forced to make one concession after the other to Roux. Just minutes earlier, Botha had been confident, easily providing Nel with answers without hesitation. Now he was stuttering, his grasp of the English language failing him as he battled to find answers to Roux's questions. Botha confirmed that the athlete did provide the version of the burglar at the scene that morning. Roux then put it to Botha that the trajectory the bullet had to follow to hit the toilet bowl was consistent with his client's version, and once again the seasoned investigator couldn't dispute this. Botha had earlier testified that the shooter was standing in front of the basin in the bathroom, but Roux pushed him to concede that the location of the cartridge was more consistent with a person standing in the doorway, where Oscar in fact claims to have been.

The advocate then moved to question the neighbours' statements. He took issue with the allegations that one of the neighbours saw a light in Oscar's house prior to the shooting, and also questioned the number of shots fired.

Nel quickly bounced to his feet and complained that Roux was interrupting his witness. Roux apologised but immediately went on to gain even more ground against the state. He confirmed that the witness claimed to have heard as many
as eight shots – two to three shots in two volleys – yet Botha agreed that only four shots had been fired. Roux also undermined the claim by a neighbour who alleged to have heard arguing for an hour before the shooting. He confirmed that the woman could not say for sure that she had heard Reeva's voice and could not be certain that the talking had come from the home of the accused. Roux asked the policeman to explain how far away the neighbours lived from Oscar's house. It was at this point that Botha's evidence was reduced to a farce.

‘Six hundred metres,' proposed Botha. Some in the gallery gasped in disbelief, realising the impossibility of this.

‘Silence!' barked Nair, settling the courtroom.

Oldwadge was shaking his head as Roux moved in for the next line of questioning. Why had Botha not taken steps to find out Oscar's cellphone number? Why, when the defence had been so willing to comply and assist the police with their investigation, didn't he ask the accused or his brother for any outstanding cellphones?

Botha was floundering.

Roux moved to discredit his evidence around the testosterone that had caused such a stir a short time earlier. He asked Botha for the exact name of the substance he had found in the bedroom. The officer couldn't say. Botha conceded that he never took a picture of it or noted down the name in his pocket book.

‘It's a herbal remedy,' said Roux, explaining that it was actually Testocompasutium co-enzyme. ‘He can use it and used it before and many athletes use it, it's not a steroid and it's not a banned substance. Have you taken any steps to establish that?' Botha had not. He accused the investigating officer of failing to verify information, choosing instead to introduce untested evidence to the court.

Roux asked whether Botha agreed that if a person went to the bathroom at 3am, their bladder would be empty. Would that be consistent with going to the toilet?

Botha agreed. The postmortem on Reeva showed that her bladder was empty, which Roux said was consistent with the version that she went to the bathroom to relieve herself. Botha further conceded that, according to Oscar's version, had Reeva gone to the toilet, he would have heard noises emanating from the bathroom. The advocate added that the autopsy showed that Reeva had sustained no defensive wounds or signs of an assault.

The defence advocate zeroed in on phone calls made to and from Oscar's phone in the moments after the shooting. Why hadn't Botha phoned Netcare to confirm whether the accused had made an emergency call to the ambulance service? Why would Oscar have been crying on the phone when speaking to a
security guard? Could that possibly have been part of the premeditated plan, to purposefully not switch off the phone and then cry? All of this was leading to Roux's argument that Botha took the approach to ‘discard anything that could be consistent with a defence and only to focus on any possible thing that could be inconsistent'. Roux wanted to know from the cop if he could find any evidence inconsistent with Oscar's version of events. Botha could not.

It was 1pm when Nair adjourned for lunch.

Oscar's bail hearing was proving to be a master class in cross-examination and Botha was struggling. He used the 30-minute lunch break to compose himself and, when he returned, Roux asked the policeman whether he still stood by what he had said when led through his evidence. Botha gave an assurance that he did.

Roux then put it to him that at the house on the morning of the shooting Botha had told several of Oscar's relatives, as well as Oldwadge, that he felt bail should not be opposed. The officer admitted that he had said this. Roux then asked about the .38 Special ammunition found in the safe. Botha said it had been wrongfully handed over to Oldwadge, but the next day when he requested it back, it was returned. Botha again conceded that no attempt was made to establish who the rightful owner of the ammunition was. The advocate placed it on record that the bullets belonged to Oscar's father Henke and he was storing them for him.

Then Roux revealed another explosive piece of information. The defence's forensic expert had found a spent bullet projectile inside the toilet bowl but, astonishingly, it had been missed by police forensics teams. The advocate called into question Botha's testimony about the trajectory as well as the distance of the shots fired, as ballistic and forensic analysis had yet to be completed. Botha also acknowledged that he had no facts or evidence to show that Oscar had attached his prostheses before the shooting.

The lawyer then explained that, usually, Oscar would sleep on the right-hand side of the bed but on the night of the shooting, he had slept on the left as he was struggling with a painful shoulder. Once again, Botha could not dispute this.

The advocate skilfully worked through each of the claims made by the investigating officer and countered them with his own. Finally, to close off his questioning, Roux asked Botha whether he had entered the house on the morning of the shooting with protective covering on his shoes.