One Tragic Night (85 page)

What Margie Orford described is what Gareth Newham, head of the Governance, Crime and Justice programme at the Institute for Security Studies, calls the ‘fear of the other' that is so pervasive in South Africa. This fear is entrenched, despite crime statistics showing a decrease.

‘Overall crime has come down, and violent crime has come down by about 25 per cent. Crime in South Africa, as recorded by the South African Police Service (SAPS), peaked in 2002/2003. About 2.1 million crimes were reported to the SAPS – it's dropped to about 1.6 million in the most recent figures. So we've seen quite a big shift.'

While holistically crime levels have come down, it is the kinds of crime that South Africans fear the most that have increased in frequency. According to the national
Victims of Crime Survey 2012,
the crime that people in the country fear most is housebreaking or burglary. About six in every ten (59.3 per cent) households perceived housebreaking/burglary to be one of the most common types of crime, followed by home robbery (46.2 per cent). Housebreaking/burglary was the most common crime experienced at least once in 2011 by 5.4 per cent of the households. It was followed by home robbery (1.5 per cent) and theft of livestock
(1.3 per cent). Theft of personal property (2.5 per cent) was the most common crime experienced by selected individuals aged 16 years and older, followed by assault (1.3 per cent).

This explains the high walls, security fences, 24-hour security and private security estates. Newham says there's a huge gap in the reality of one's risk and the perception that the wealthier you are, the more risk you face.

‘When it comes to home invasions and business robberies and car hijackings, we've seen different patterns there. We saw a big increase starting in about 2005 with home invasions, about a 100 per cent increase in house invasions and we've seen about 300 per cent increase in business robberies. Now robberies mean violent attacks. Armed gangs of usually two or three or four go into a house, go into a business with the intent of stealing from that place and that property, and so there's direct contact between the victim and the perpetrators, and the perpetrators are most often armed,' says Newham.

According to the 2012/2013 crime statistics released by the South African Police Service, robberies at residential properties were deemed a ‘stubborn' crime that has increased by 69.8 per cent over the past nine years. The stats show that per 100 000 households in the country, 34.3 fell victim to this type of crime in the year that Oscar shot Reeva.

These are often very traumatic experiences for the victims and the media will report on the most violent cases in which people are shot, wounded or raped, which perpetuates the fear. ‘That generally tends to build a sense that all house robberies are going to result in some sort of severe injury when, in fact, docket analyses that are taken by the police show that in almost 90 per cent of the time, the victims are physically unharmed. In about 2 per cent of the cases, there is a murder and in about 4 per cent of the cases, there is a rape. So basically it's a crime of economics,' says Newham.

While fear continues to pervade society, crime is not as prevalent as people think. In total there are around 17 000 house robberies a year in South Africa – Newham says that when one considers there are around 8 to 10 million houses, the likelihood of being a target is fairly low, although those in wealthy areas are more likely to be targets. ‘So the chances of being a victim are actually quite small, but the thing is it's hitting the middle classes, so people who sometimes have quite a high profile in the community – business people, leaders sometimes become victims to these kind of crimes, so it has quite a big impact in driving fear. It is targeting more wealthier houses, so for instance, the number of houses robbed in Sandton is about six times higher than the number of houses that get robbed in [the poorer township of Alexandra] because if you rob a house in
Alex, you're going to get a lot less out of it than you are going to get in Sandton.'

However, when one looks at South Africa's murder rate, the majority of those killed are murdered by someone they know and not in anonymous robberies.

‘Violent crime affects poorer people in South Africa at a far greater rate than wealthier people. If you look at how murder and assault happen in South Africa, a vast majority of those cases are between people who know each other and live in the same communities. According to the police research and a lot of other research, violent crime is mostly between males while under the influence of alcohol. The argument could be about girlfriends, money, sports teams, it turns very violent very quickly and somebody gets shot, stabbed or beaten to death. That is what drives our murder rate. But what happens is people will get these statistics that come out from the police every year, see “Oh, we have 45 murders a day!” or whatever it is and … read about a murder in a house robbery and make this connection that there's just this rampant, random murder going on. It's not like that,' stresses Newham.

He also points out that, despite popular belief, the vast majority of South Africans don't own firearms. ‘If you consider that there are approximately 1.8 million firearm owners and about 36 million people over the age of 18 who could legally own a licensed firearm, you have 5 per cent of the population – adult population – carrying firearms. Ninety-five per cent don't, so it's not really correct to think of South Africa as a gun-happy place or that there is generally a culture of using firearms, of carrying firearms; it's actually quite a small number of people who do use or keep firearms legally. Some of the estimations [are] that there is maybe twice that number, or another 1 million or so that are illegal.'

In her article ‘The Invisible Witness' for Yahoo Sports, journalist Nastasya Tay said: ‘As several commentators pointed out, after Pistorius and his friends took a gun into a busy bistro and discharged it by accident they simply apologised to the manager and left. If a group of young black men had done the same, the consequences would have undoubtedly been more severe, with police being called to the scene.'

Tay added:

It was inevitable that the court would venture into Oscar's state of mind, and explore his psychology leading up to the shots that killed his girlfriend.

The Oscar the world knew was a triumphant athlete, arms thrust into the air after running a record-breaking time on a track or confidently posing in an advert for a global brand. But the world had also been exposed to the angry Oscar who felt he'd been cheated during the Paralympics. What had emerged in court was a fearful Oscar, a man who claimed he faced lifelong exposure to crime and felt vulnerable because of his physical condition. While he kept a firearm with him almost every waking moment, he wanted more weapons. This enthusiasm seemingly blurred the lines of vulnerability. Then there was the emotional Oscar, debilitated by violent episodes of heaving and retching.

It was a complex question of not just who is Oscar, but who was Oscar? The defence team would have to take the court beyond the morning of 14 February and delve into his mind before most would believe his story of an intruder in the house. What made Oscar tick? What ticked Oscar off? What was his mother like? What happened to his father? What effect did being raised without legs have on the growing boy's sense of security? How well did he adapt to global stardom?

Once this was established, the court could then explore the question of how this person could reasonably be expected to act when faced with the prospect of a deadly threat in his own home, and whether that response could mitigate his legal responsibility for Reeva's death.

Oscar's mental well-being was a starting point for his evidence-in-chief. After a tearful apology to Reeva's family, he told the court he had been prescribed a concoction of sedatives, antidepressants, anti-anxiety and mood stabiliser medications since February 2013. His biggest problem was an inability to sleep and being plagued by nightmares, visions of the events as they unfolded that morning. ‘I wake up and I smell … I can smell blood and I wake up to be terrified,' he said as he grappled to time his sentences between uncontrollable heavings of his chest. ‘If I hear a noise I wake up, just in a … in a complete state of terror, to a point that I would rather not sleep, then I fall asleep and wake up like that.' His sister Aimee, whose contorted face bore the evidence of anguish she'd witnessed first-hand in her sibling, matched his emotions in the gallery. Oscar stated that for weeks after the shooting he could not sleep at all, which led to a significant amount of weight loss. At that stage he moved in to his uncle Arnold's house where he was in the care of his family.

Oscar paused for about 20 seconds when he was asked to describe an episode he'd recently had. ‘I woke up in a panic and I … I am … I am blessed that my sister stays on the same property as I do, so I can phone her in the middle of the night, which I often do to come and sit by me, and on that particular night … I do not obviously ever want to handle a firearm again or be around a firearm, so I have got a security guard that stands outside of my front door at night. But I woke up and I was terrified and I … I for some reason could not calm myself down, so I climbed into the cupboard and I phoned my sister to come and sit by me for a while which she did … My Lady.'

The purpose of this revelation was twofold: first to illustrate just how emotionally distraught the accused is and that he is still suffering the emotional effects of being responsible for killing his girlfriend; and to show that he continues to harbour an inescapable and incapacitating fear of crime to the point that he has a security guard posted at his bedroom door. These two themes, of remorse and vulnerability, were central to the defence team's case and the basis for trying to prove that Oscar's conduct in the moments leading up to the shooting was reasonable, and that his state of mind after the event was inconsistent with a man who planned to kill the woman he loved.

It was a carefully crafted prologue that concluded with a timed pause from the advocate to allow the court to reflect on what they'd just heard. Roux then changed stride by casting the court's mind back to 22 November 1986. ‘Mr Pistorius, going to your background, when were you born?' Oscar discussed his childhood growing up in a loving home, but with a father who wasn't often around because he worked away from home and a ‘soft heart-natured' mother
who was a fantastic parent. After his parents separated when he was six years old, the three children and their mom struggled financially, but a supportive extended family made sure they were never in want. Oscar said they moved around quite a lot.

Roux asked about the ‘difficulty with his legs'.

‘I would not say there is a difficulty with my legs,' Oscar said after a brief hesitation, reluctant to concede he is disabled, reminiscent of the man who had fought for parity in the athletic arena. ‘I would say that I am … I have got prosthetic legs that allow me to … help me to overcome those disabilities or those difficulties, yes a difficulty would be when I do not have my legs on. I do not have balance. I have very limited mobility.'

Oscar described the medical condition with which he was born, how at the age of 11 months his legs were amputated, he received his first pair of prosthetic legs two months after that procedure, and had since been mobile on those legs. Despite his obvious handicap, his parents didn't see this as something that should hold the boy back. Oscar said his parents, particularly his mother, treated him like any other child. While he was bullied on occasions, he ably stood up for himself as he was taught to do by his mother.

From a young age he was very active, participating in a variety of sporting activities without letting his disability impede him. Oscar explained how he had been injured in high-school rugby and how he made his way into disabled athletics.

Oscar also revealed that his mother was particularly concerned by crime, so much so that she slept with a handgun in a padded pouch under her pillow at night. This fear was exacerbated by the lack of a man in the house and that they often lived in areas hard hit by crime. Oscar said at night when his mother got scared, she would call the police. ‘On a couple of occasions, they did break into our home, but more often than not, it was just her being scared and so she had come, you know, at night and call us to go and sit in her room and many times we would just wait for the police to arrive,' he said.