Oscar interview ‘a PR exercise’
Post-show panel find his performance rehearsed
FOR hundreds of thousands of viewers who tuned in last night to watch Oscar Pistorius’s first television interview since he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013, it was all just an elaborate performance on the former Paralympian’s part.
A tearful Pistorius is seen in the interview with British broadcast journalist Mark Williams-Thomas of ITV, saying things like: “I did take Reeva’s life and I have to live with that. I can smell the blood. I can feel the warmness of it on my hands. And to know that that’s your fault, that that’s what you’ve done.”
But Pistorius’s interview, which was screened in the UK, then by Carte Blanche last night, has been slammed by many who stayed up to watch the much-anticipated interview.
Unconvinced
Among those unconvinced about Pistorius’s honesty and authenticity is clinical psychologist Leonard Carr, who took part in a post-show panel discussion which was also aired last night. The panel also included advocate Mannie Witz and former Judge Chris Greenland. Greenland said last night that the show would have no bearing on Judge Thokosile Masipa’s sentencing of Pistorius that takes place on July 6.
Carr, meanwhile, did not hold back. He used words like “rehearsed” and “contrived” to describe Pistorius’s “performance” for the ITV interview.
“To me the interview sounded like a staged restatement of his evidence and what he’d like people to believe.”
DUNCAN GUY
ALL three of the Upper Highway teenagers who ended up hospitalised because of drug overdoses last week were from broken homes, according to one of their fathers.
They consumed dangerous, carelessly-made ecstasy-based pills containing dubious additives, called “Mitsubishi” tablets, similar to the “Mercedes” type that killed three of their peers in KwaMashu in March.
“Generally, families that are (a unit) are always more together when it comes to problems than one that is broken up for whatever reason: divorce, death or work separation,” the father told The Independent on Saturday in an exclusive interview.
He may not be identified as doing so would identify his 17-year-old son.
“Parents need to know that
The interview took place in Pistorius’s uncle’s home in Pretoria, where he is under house arrest while awaiting sentencing.
In the interview, Pistorius gives a detailed account of what led to the fateful shooting on the night of February 14, 2013, saying it still haunts him.
Carr was damning last night, saying too that it was as if Pistorius was “narrating a movie”.
He added: “Remember that after three years, he’s told this version to many people like his lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists, so there’s a certain amount of coaching and rehearsal.”
The psychologist added that he was “surprised” that Pistorius managed to remember the minute details of the night that he had shot Steenkamp, including the exchanges he had with Reeva, and the terms of endearment the two had shared with each other on the night.
In the interview, Pistorius also said: “When I came in the room I placed my firearm on the left-hand side under the bed. And then she said, ‘come on, let’s go and brush our teeth,’ and I didn’t get up immediately and she called from the bathroom, and she’s like, ‘come baba, you have to brush your teeth’.
“So I’d taken my legs off. So I’m lying on the right-hand side of the bed and my legs (are) on the left and I don’t feel like walking across and getting them and everything. So I walked to the bathroom on my stumps and then she gave me this little smile, you know, like a kind of, like, ‘right, I’m the boss around here’ type thing.”
Carr said that, in his experience, people who had been through a traumatic event would have suffered some sort of memory loss.
“Anyone who’s been through trauma would know that your memory is very patchy afterwards. Oscar tells such a smooth story and I think that a lot of it is because it’s been rehearsed.”
Earlier this month Pistorius’s family insisted the interview would enable him to address some of the “misconceptions that have remained unchallenged”, and provide the family with a voice. It has also been reported that the family has said it would not be enriched by granting interviews, despite the fact that mounting legal fees have cost them a fortune.
“We are aware of the lucrative mini-industry of paid-for interviews and bought information that developed around this case‚ and we wanted to steer very clear of this,” Arnold Pistorius reportedly told the Sowetan newspaper.
Another aspect of the interview that has also met with scorn by the likes of Carr is that Pistorius says in the interview that he believed that Steenkamp would want him to devote his life to charity rather than be sent back to prison for killing her.
“I don’t want to go back to jail. I don’t want to have to waste my life sitting there. If I was afforded the opportunity of redemption, I would like to help the less fortunate,” he said in the interview.
Public relations
“I would like to believe that if Reeva could look down upon me, she would want me to live that life.”
Carr, who’s been following the Pistorius case with keen interest for the past three years, said that he was yet to see a “remorseful side” to Pistorius.
“It still seems to be all about Oscar and it’s very hard to know who he really is because the versions keep changing, the public relations keep changing, and so on.”
“I haven’t seen evidence of remorse that would focus on paying the price, having genuine regard for the feelings of the Steenkamps and understanding that, in killing Reeva, he destroyed someone’s potential who was possibly going to have children and grandchildren and all kinds of good was going to come from her.”
Carr added that he believes the interview was nothing more than a public relations exercise.
“I think if he would have given evidence that showed remorse, it could have been mitigating.
“This case has had the biggest jury in history and I’ve never seen so many unconvinced people. In all the exposure we’ve had of Oscar and the public relations, people still remain unconvinced,” said Carr.
“If you look at Barry Steenkamp, he looks like a broken man. You can see that his body is filed with tension and pain. Oscar shows a huge emotional display, but that is often related to emotional superficiality. That is why I have always seen Oscar more as a performer.”
sameer.naik@inl.co.za