Blade runner‘s moment of truth

Downcast ... Oscar Pistorius has had a massive falling from grace in South Africa, whatever the outcome of the trial. Picture: Alon Skuy Source: AP

EARLY next month in Pretoria, South Africa, the opposing legal teams in the so-called Trial of the Century will make their final submissions before Judge Thokozile Masipa retires to consider her verdict on the guilt or otherwise of Oscar Pistorius, the Blade Runner.

The first double-amputee athlete to run at the Olympic Games, Pistorius is accused of the premeditated murder of Reeva Steenkamp, the clever and stunningly beautiful law graduate and model who had been his girlfriend for less than four months.

The day the judgment comes down millions will follow every word in a fit of voyeuristic curiosity, attracted by the alluring mixture of fame, glamour, money, fast cars, guns and a shocking fall from grace.

For the majority tuning in on TV or via the internet elsewhere around the world it will be a dispassionate interest, like watching a movie or reading the latest crime bestseller. But not in South Africa. In South Africa, this is personal.

To South Africans Oscar Pistorius was more than a champion Paralympian or celebrity. He was a symbol of their country. Like South Africa itself, he had overcome a difficult birth and shown that with hard work and an indomitable spirit, anything is possible.

South Africans hadn't just supported Pistorius as he took on the world and won, they had embraced him, adopted him, held him up as they did their rainbow coloured flags and said, "this is who we are".

And when, on Valentine's Day last year he shot four Black Talon hollow-point bullets through the locked toilet door of his house and killed Reeva Steenkamp, they felt more than shock. They felt anger.

Victim ... Reeva Steenkamp was killed on Valentine's Day, 2013. Source: News Limited

IN COURT: Pistorius re-enacts shooting

IN SUMMARY: Defence closes its case

Like Australians, who felt let down by the recent conviction of Rolf Harris on child sex charges, so too do many South Africans feel personally cheated by the man they so enthusiastically placed on the highest of pedestals.

Which is why, no matter what Judge Masipa decides, Pistorius has already been found guilty in South Africa's court of public opinion.

One doesn't have to speak to many locals in South Africa's capital to realise that the majority believe Pistorius murdered Steenkamp. What is stunning is the bitterness with which they spit out the words.

"Of course he did it," says Neil, an engineer I meet at my Pretoria hotel during the second week of the trial. "They had an argument and he got his gun and blew her away. Simple as that."

Judgment is hers ... Judge Thokozile Masipa is presiding over the Oscar Pistorius trial. Source: Supplied

People who have never met him speak of Pistorius's jealousy, his uncontrollable temper, and his readiness to reach for his gun.

Yet, much as the prosecutor in the case, Gerrie Nel, has tried to portray Pistorius in that light, virtually every piece of evidence he has produced to support his case has been countered, diluted or downright discredited by defence attorney Barry Roux.

Of the five individuals who have come to define this trial with their daily appearances: Pistorius, Steenkamp's mother June, Judge Masipa, Nel and Roux, there is no doubt that Roux has been the most influential.

Courtroom regular ... Reeva Steenkamp's mother June during the trial. Picture: Alon Skuy Source: Getty Images

Over the past five months we have seen the firm hand of Judge Masipa, the theatrics of Pistorius, the stoic dignity of Mrs Steenkamp and the aggression of Nel but, most of all, the quiet menace of Roux.

Time and again his unrelenting cross-examination has turned state witnesses into gibbering wrecks. Two senior police officers were forced to resign after Roux had finished with them; neighbours of Pistorius recanted on their version of events; the integrity of forensic evidence was questioned and the standard of the police investigation totally discredited.

Stern visage ... Barry Roux, lawyer for the defence. Picture: Phill Magakoe Source: AFP

So popular has he become, that he has attracted his own cheer squad who have stood outside the courtroom wearing T-shirts emblazoned with one of his favourite lines, "If I put it to you ..."

If Roux did fall down in any area it may have been in preparing his client for cross-examination. Throughout the prosecution case Pistorius would regularly burst into tears or become ill when graphic details of Steenkamp's injuries were discussed. His many detractors claimed it was an act, but by calling adjournments to allow him to compose himself Judge Masipa — the sole arbiter in the case — showed herself to be sympathetic.

Where the judge's patience did seem to be stretched with Pistorius was when the prosecution finally got its chance to cross examine him. It got off very badly when Nel showed the court — and, inadvertently millions of TV viewers — shocking pictures of Steenkamp's fatal head wound, causing him to be warned by the judge and admonished by Mrs Steenkamp, but things improved when he took a more considered approach.

State prosecutor ... Gerrie Nel has been one of the faces of the trial. Picture: Siphiwe Sibeko Source: AFP

In fact, Nel didn't have to do much at all, just ask a question and sit back as Pistorius did the prosecution's work for it with long, meandering answers that never got to the point.

Yet for all the wasted words by Pistorius, the fact remains that never once did Nel shake him from his story: that he went to the balcony to bring in two fans, heard a sound in the bathroom, thought it was an intruder, retrieved his gun from next to the bed and fired four shots through the door thinking he and Steenkamp were about to be attacked.

If you had never been to Pretoria it might seem, as Nel described it, "so improbable that no-one could possibly believe it", but having witnessed the fear and gun culture with which one section of the community lives, it actually seems very probable.

More importantly, it would seem Nel never managed to prove otherwise "beyond a reasonable doubt", and despite what millions of South Africans and many more around the world might think, when Judge Thokozile Masipa makes her ruling over the next few weeks, that is all that will count.

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