One Tragic Night (89 page)

Scholtz said Oscar was immediately taken with Reeva when she entered his life, to the extent that he even took her to his grandfather's funeral and introduced her to his uncle Arnold – apparently, the first girlfriend to have met him, although Sam Taylor would later dispute this. Scholtz found that ‘their relationship shows none of the characteristics associated with an abusive relationship', and that they had a ‘normal, loving relationship where the athlete exhibited genuine feelings towards Reeva'.

While the reports cleared Oscar of any mental illness or disorder that could have affected his ability to determine right from wrong – he wasn't insane and was thus still criminally liable – they did present a psychological profile of someone completely different from the gold-medalist Paralympian. Weak and insecure on his stumps, Oscar used his prosthetic legs as a prop to exude confidence, and to further compensate for growing insecurity he acquired another prop – a firearm.

Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Gerald Versfeld has known Oscar for most of the young man's life. It was to Versfeld that Oscar's parents turned when he was a baby, seeking advice on how best to deal with the congenital deformities of his legs. It was Versfeld who advised them to amputate below the knee and performed the procedure that would define Oscar's life. The soft-spoken man continued to treat Oscar throughout his life, so he is intimately familiar with his type of amputation and the difficulties the athlete faces with his stumps.

Part of the defence team's contention related to Oscar's vulnerability is his lack of mobility on his stumps. Versfeld was called to explain in a clinical manner precisely why Oscar experiences such difficulties and what effect these have on his mobility.

Oscar can't stand still on his stumps; he has to move around to retain his balance. He is also far better walking on soft surfaces – such as carpets as opposed to tiles – and has better balance in the light as opposed to the dark. He needs his arms to be able to balance on his stumps and often fell over.

Versfeld presented X-rays to the court and asked Masipa to have a look at them as he explained what they showed, but he also asked that the judge have a closer inspection of the stumps.

Masipa and her assessors made their way down from the bench to where Oscar was seated, just behind Nel. Masipa leant on a court orderly for support.

Oscar had pulled up his pants and taken off his prostheses, exposing the bony extensions below his knee that are almost always kept hidden. Like in Rembrandt's
Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp,
the surgeon drew the attention of the small crowd that had gathered to the subject's stumps. While Oscar sat upright with his eyes closed, bearing the humiliation of being prodded and
inspected, Versfeld, who was kneeling down, gently moved the heel pad around on the stump to demonstrate its mobility.

As the doctor continued his demonstration, Nel remained seated in front of his lectern doodling in his notebook and didn't once look back to see what Versfeld was demonstrating to the court. The prosecutor was indifferent; it didn't matter because it wasn't his case. Oscar's mobility and the problems he experienced with his stumps had no bearing on the state's version of events – of the argument that led to the shooting.

Nel set out a timeline and offered to the court his own reason for why Versfeld was called at such a late stage in the trial. The doctor first consulted with Oscar on 7 May 2014, nearly a month after he had finished his own testimony.

‘You have seen a person for whom it was very important to indicate severe vulnerability and inability to walk. What will you say if I tell you that?' asked Nel.

‘I cannot dispute that. I think that is fair,' said Versfeld, making the concession.

Nel questioned the doctor's ability to make a finding on Oscar's vulnerability in relation to his physical disabilities. His point was that in Oscar's own version he ran on his stumps, he moved fans, he walked on tiles, he fired his handgun and he never once fell over despite doing it all in the dark. The athlete's version was thus in stark contrast to what his experts wanted the court to believe in relation to his mobility.

Nel was determined to expose the lie, that Oscar's version was so improbable and the fact that he had called witnesses at such a late stage was merely an attempt to bolster a version that had come under significant attack during his cross-examination. Roux, however, countered the claims by stating that all the while Oscar moved in the dark he either had one hand on the floor or was leaning against a wall.

Oscar's agent Peet van Zyl was another late addition to the witness list. He was called on the Saturday after the legal teams had received the psychiatric assessment report – which found that the accused did not suffer from an anxiety disorder – and was told to be at Barry Roux's chamber to consult to be a witness. Until that week, Van Zyl had not been part of the defence strategy. But his presence on the stand inadvertently opened the door for the state to address the court on character evidence – evidence it was not permitted to adduce, but can question a witness on if presented by the defence team.

Van Zyl described his relationship with the accused, having met him in 2004 at the Athens Paralympic Games and establishing a business relationship two years later. When Roux asked about Oscar's vigilance, it was soon clear why the defence had called the agent.

‘It was very evident that … he had a heightened sense of awareness,' said Van Zyl. He recalled how Oscar would speed in his car to the airport for fear of being hijacked; he would choose well-lit parking spaces with easy access; and recalled how in a New York street Oscar grabbed his arm in fright after a loud bang.

Even in his own home, Van Zyl said, Oscar was always looking around, asking his housekeeper whether the front door was locked and where the dogs were. When they went for coffee, the manager said his client would choose a table that had clear access and a view of the exit.

Significantly, Van Zyl only recalled two incidents when Oscar lost his temper: once in 2009 at the Barcelona Airport when a group of reporters confronted him about the controversy related to his blades and called him a cheat; and the second time during the London Olympic Games when Oscar walked
off a BBC radio interview at the presenter's suggestion that the athlete was an embarrassment for South African athletics administrators.

He described Oscar's relationship with Reeva as ‘loving and caring', and that he had been asked to arrange that she accompany Oscar to athletics meetings in Brazil and the UK. ‘He has never asked me for anything like this, to have one of his girlfriends in the past accompany him on any trips to an athletic competition' he said, adding later that plans were also in the pipeline for the couple to travel to Italy in July 2013.

It was Werner Swart of the
Sunday Times
who, days after Van Zyl stepped down from the witness box, drew the comparison between Oscar's agent and the main protagonist of the movie with the same name
Jerry Maguire.

Just as Maguire hopped, skipped and jumped for American footballer Rod Tidwell – ‘Show me the money!' – Nel tried to show the court that Van Zyl was doing the same dance for Oscar, that he was there to protect his client's interest at all costs and not say ‘negative things about Oscar'.

Van Zyl told us outside court one morning that he kept out of Oscar's private life and that their relationship was strictly business. ‘I was making a ton of cash out of South Africa's new Posh and Becks,' he said.

Van Zyl said he had made no mention in court of the infamous incident at the London Games when Oscar complained about Brazilian Alan Oliveira after he beat him simply because he had not been there and rather specifically referred to incidents that happened in his presence. While he conceded that Oscar lost his temper, he said there was a history to the affair that related to the length and design of the blades Oscar's competitor had been using. It was the first public outburst from the athlete that many believed, in hindsight, provided some insight into his personality.

Then there was the incident with fellow athlete Arnu Fourie, as told to former Talk Radio 702 presenter David O'Sullivan. Fourie had just won the bronze medal in the 100 metres when O'Sullivan asked what it was like sharing a room with Oscar. ‘He told me he had been forced to move out, because Oscar was constantly screaming in anger at people on the phone.'

On the witness stand Van Zyl said he had not been specifically informed of the details of the issue, other than that Fourie wanted to leave the room because of problems with his client and that he believed it had been dealt with at a team level. Van Zyl, in his cross-examination, gave a stronger indication that all was
not right between the two teammates, saying there had been ‘a situation', but it had been dealt with.

Later, after Van Zyl's evidence, Fourie issued a statement via Twitter:

Notably absent in the statement was any denial of the allegations that Oscar ‘was constantly screaming in anger at people on the phone'.

The South African Paralympic team doctor, Wayne Derman, was also asked about this when he came to give evidence. He confirmed that two nights before the 100 metres final, Fourie came to him complaining that he had symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection. To avoid the illness spreading, Fourie was placed in an isolation room reserved for this purpose. Derman insisted he knew nothing about the request being related to Oscar screaming on the phone.

But beyond the courtroom, O'Sullivan stuck to his version of the conversation. After the matter was raised in court, O'Sullivan was contacted by a number of individuals, including Paralympic athletes, who were present at one of Oscar's angry outbursts in the Village. They refused to be publicly identified because they didn't want to get embroiled in the saga, but they did – according to O'Sullivan – provide further details about the fight.

He says they confirmed that Oscar was fighting with his then girlfriend Samantha Taylor. ‘The athletes said Oscar was heard threatening the man who had dared to invite his girlfriend out. They spoke about Pistorius's rage, how he had cried and shouted and stormed out of the Village. As one of them put it: “Oscar went tilt” – South African slang for losing control. A person close to the situation said the throat infection was, in fact, a ruse to get Fourie away from Pistorius,' says O'Sullivan.