Justice running its course for Oscar

Day four of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial in South Africa saw testimony from one of the first people on the scene. Nathan Frandino reports.

The other side ... from Olympic hero to murder accused, Oscar Pistorius. Source: AFP

THE last time I saw Oscar Pistorius he had the world at his carbon-fibre feet.

It was 17 months ago at the London Olympic stadium. He had just run a semi-final of the men's 400 metres and, having failed to qualify for the final, was waving farewell to the adoring crowd.

I had seen Pistorius many times previously of course, on TV and YouTube, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day.

Every Olympics has what the marketing people term its "sporting heroes", the ones who make it "their Games": Bolt, Ellis, Farah, Phelps, Thorpe, Freeman, Spitz … but this was different.

This was a man who didn't win a medal but whose performance transcended sport while at the same time elevating it. A man who, in becoming the first double amputee to compete in open competition at the Olympics, had inspired millions and redefined the term "disabled".

Showing strain ... Oscar Pistorius hides his face during the fourth day of his trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Source: AFP

There is another term that is all too often used in connection to genetically blessed and well compensated athletes. Sporting god. Looking down from the stand at Pistorius that day it was one I couldn't get out of my head and into my notebook fast enough.

Fittingly, for the Olympic setting, Pistorius looked like something from Greek mythology; a sci-fi version of the Centaur. Above the knees the handsome face and well-defined upper torso of human perfection; below, a set of black polymer blades.

I jotted down another overworked word in my notebook that day as I tried to capture my thoughts. Awesome.

The world has seen a different side of the 27 year-old Pistorius up close over the past week.

Sitting in a courtroom in Pretoria, accused of murdering law graduate and model Reeva Steenkamp, 29, his girlfriend of three months, he looks anything but God-like. In fact, his prosthetic legs hidden by a pair of suit trousers, he is as ordinary as anyone else. Less than ordinary, in fact.

For Pistorius's defence team, arguing that he shot Steenkamp inadvertently in the honest belief there was an intruder in the ensuite bathroom of his luxury apartment, this will be a crucial.

Oscar Pistorius has shielded his ears as he heard evidence about attempts to save Reeva Steenkamp's life.

They don't want Pistorius to be thought of as superhuman, let alone the stereotypical highly-paid, overindulged, self-centred professional athlete who considers himself above the law.

Over the next six weeks they will be at pains to paint him as exactly the opposite of the public perception of the man who proved in London that anything is possible.

Already, much has been made of the fact that when Pistorius shot four bullets into the tiny room where Steenkamp cowered in fear of her lover — or used the toilet, depending on which version of events you believe — his artificial legs were leaning against the bedroom wall 15 metres away.

The face of a murderer? Oscar Pistorius, second right, arrives at the high court before the start of the fifth day of his trial in Pretoria, South Africa. Source: AP

It is an emotive image, and one Pistorius's defence counsel Barry Roux will go back to time and time again. One of a frightened, legless man, dragging himself on his stumps towards an unknown enemy in a terrifying attempt to defend the woman he loved.

On that Valentine's Day night, Roux will try to prove, this was no sporting hero, no mythical character. It was just a man. A disabled man, facing every South African's nightmare.

Back in the days of what is now known as Australia's Stolen Generation, Aboriginal parents instilled in their children a fear of the "bogey man", the all-encompassing white predator who would come in the night and steal them away.

In South Africa the colours are reversed, but the fear is the same. Every white South African has a bogey man, the black intruder who at any moment might run up to their car window with a gun, or climb over the balcony of their luxury apartment to steal whatever they can get their hands on.

Everyone now knows that the bogey man Pistorius alludes to did not exist, but white South Africans are being encouraged by Roux to add a suffix … "on this occasion".

What if he did, Roux will ask in not so many words. And what if it wasn't Oscar Pistorius's balcony that he climbed over, but yours? What would you do to protect your partner or family?

Would you get back into bed, pull the covers over your head and pray, or would you reach for the gun that most South Africans keep nearby for just such an emergency, shoot first and ask questions later?

And you are an able-bodied person, not as Roux has attempted to portray from day one of the trial, one who parks in the handicapped spot at the supermarket, and whose human frailties could not be further removed from the public perception of a self-assured, almost arrogant celebrity.

So far he has done a good job.

The early days of testimony came from a series of well-educated neighbours who gave credible and potentially damning evidence of hearing screams and gunshots in the night.

Model looks ... Oscar Pistorius with girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Source: AFP

Yet what were the masses of people who slavishly follow this trial on live TV and web blogs around the world talking about most? Roux's astonishing claim that when Pistorius is excited he makes "high pitched sounds" — like a woman.

On the other side of the courtroom, prosecutor Gerrie Nel is working just as hard to portray the once-revered Blade Runner as anything but a sensitive soul who squeals like a girl. Far from it. To hear Nel tell it Pistorius is a jealous, trigger-happy limelighter who would ask a friend to take the blame when he carelessly discharged a gun in a crowded restaurant.

But it really doesn't matter which version of Pistorius the public chooses to adopt.

The man and woman in the street doesn't get a vote on his innocence or guilt. There is not even a jury, unlike that other "Trial of the Century" which contained so many similarities.

Back in 1994 O.J Simpson was the sporting superstar whose life was laid bare in a courtroom, and on live TV.

Like Pistorius, his feats in the sporting arena had earned him fame, fortune and a beautiful blonde partner. Like Pistorius he stood accused of her murder.

And, in the early days of Pistorius's legal proceedings, it would seem both trials are following a similar path: the prosecution trying to emphasise the accused's celebrity, the defence trying to downplay it, while lost in the background, almost as an aside, is the tragic loss of two young women with everything to live for.

In terms of courtroom proceedings, the parallels end there. Simpson's defence attorney Johnny Cochran was able to choose a jury that he felt he could best convince of his client's innocence.

South Africa does not have a jury system. The one person the lawyers will plead to is Judge Thokozile Masipa. While she has established an impeccable record since being appointed to the bench in 1999, she would probably not have been Mr Roux's first choice to hear the case.

Heroic effort ... Oscar Pistorius crosses the line to win gold in the men's 400m — T44 final during the athletics competition at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Source: AFP

A former crime reporter and social worker, she is a champion of violence against women campaigners thanks to the harsh penalties she has handed down to men she has found guilty of crimes against women. Last year she sentenced a serial rapist and thief to 252 years in jail — as a deterrent.

Plus, she is black — the second woman of her skin colour to be appointed to the judiciary after apartheid — so the "bogey man" defence, implied as it might be, may be wasted on her.

But that is the system under which South African law works and under which Team Pistorius must argue its case. Unlike for Cochran, there will be no "if the glove don't fit, you must acquit" moment for Roux.

Instead, the best chance for his client is that over the next six weeks Roux can put a 66-year-old black woman into Pistorius's shoes on that terrible night 15 months ago.

Shoes that were on a pair of artificial legs leaning against a wall.

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