Is he the boyfriend from hell?
Jealous. Grumpy. Controlling. Judgmental . . . Only Judge Thokozile Masipa can decide whether Oscar Pistorius murdered Reeva Steenkamp, but many would agree that, on the evidence led so far, he was not a nice guy to date, writes Prega Govender
TEXT messages between murder accused Oscar Pistorius and his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp indicate that she was in “a typically abusive relationship”.
This is the professional opinion of clinical psychologist Leonard Carr, who has often been called to testify in court as an expert witness.
Carr based his comments on a close analysis of a lengthy WhatsApp message Steenkamp sent to Pistorius on January 27 last year and on his response to her.
The court heard that 90% of the exchanges between the couple were “loving” and that they called each other “Angel” and “Baba”.
Two messages among the 1 709 extracted from the couple’s iPhones were highlighted by data analyst Captain Francois Moller, one of the state’s expert witnesses in the High Court in Pretoria this week.
The messages again raise questions about how Pistorius treated his girlfriends, after ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor testified earlier that the Paralympian had often shouted at her.
Taylor said there were several times when he screamed at her — and her friends and family.
Carr said the messages between Pistorius and Steenkamp suggested “a highly controlling relationship”.
“He controlled her with jealousy, with isolation. From these [messages] he looks like someone who is unable to really love. He doesn’t show any empathy for her; he doesn’t show any deep respect for her.”
Pistorius was “highly manip- ulative” and had “an overdeveloped sense of entitlement”, said Carr.
In her message, Steenkamp wrote: “I am scared of u sometimes and how u snap at me and of how u will react to me.”
She started her message by questioning why she was writing to him first.
She went on to say: “But perhaps it says a lot about what’s going on here. Today was one of my best friend’s engagements and I wanted to stay longer. I was enjoying myself but it’s over now.”
Carr said her comments were typical of those of an abused woman: “She starts by expressing her need and makes her point. Then she withdraws and says ‘ But it’s over now’. She’s not standing her ground in her power.”
Steenkamp gave a glimpse into Pistorius’s character when she wrote: “You have picked on me incessantly since you got back from CT [Cape Town] and I understand that you are sick but it’s nasty.”
Carr said this revealed the athlete’s “controlling kind of behaviour, undermining her”.
Another insight into his character is revealed in this line from her: “I was not flirting with anyone today. I feel sick that u suggested that and that u made a scene at the table and made us leave early.”
Said Carr: “She’s starting to justify her being, which tells you she’s under surveillance and obviously he calls her to account for anything that he qualifies as flirting.
“He’s punishing her for apparently flirting, humiliating her in front of friends, which escalates the punishment, and also making them leave early.
“So you can see he’s starting to isolate her from her friends because now he’s becoming a liability in front of her friends.
“In an abusive relationship, she’ll probably protect him and isolate herself from her friends to avoid these scenes.”
Steenkamp expressed her bitter disappointment about how the day ended: “We are living in a double standard relationship where u can be mad about how I deal with stuff when u are very quick to act cold and offish when you’re unhappy.
“Every five seconds I hear how you dated another chick. You really have dated a lot of people yet you get upset when I mention ONE funny story with a long-term boyfriend.”
Carr said this illustrated that Pistorius believed he had a right “to act out” when he was unhappy, but Steenkamp had “to behave and be perfect all the time”.
“She starts to justify that she’s not a slut, while he rubs it in her face all the time that he is sought after. You can see the power thing here.”
Carr likened her remark, “I do everything to make u happy”, to that of an abused woman who is constantly monitoring her own behaviour.
“She was trying not to press his buttons. You can see she’s fundamentally not safe in the relationship.”
He said the fact that she left the engagement party of Pistorius’s former friend, Darren Fresco, early showed “he obviously didn’t give a hoot about her needs, her feelings and what was important to her. It shows his self-centredness.”
Carr said Steenkamp’s message revealed a picture of an abused woman “trying to placate and reassure the abuser”.
On the other hand, he said, Pistorius’s response to her message, which starts off with “I want to talk to you; I want to sort this out” showed that he “totally minimises his behaviour”.
“He’s a narcissist, in my opinion. He’s got a fantasy relationship in his mind and he says the right things according to his fantasy of how he wants the relationship to be. And, of course, that’s what she wants to hear, so she buys into that. But you can see what’s really going on in the relationship.
“His response shows he has no empathy for her. He justifies his behaviour — he doesn’t take her seriously. He makes a weak promise about what a wonderful relationship they want to have,” said Carr.
“He is emotionally shallow. He sees things in a very concrete way. He doesn’t get the nuance, he doesn’t get the emotional meaning. It’s all concrete. She’s desperately trying to get him to see the meaning.”
Carr suggested that the reason Pistorius behaved the way he did could be because he was perhaps shamed as a child.
“The mere fact that he has this disability would have caused him shame.
“I know he lost his mother when he was young and I have understood he didn’t have a great relationship with his father,” said Carr.