Quiet day for Reeva’s mom as Oscar is freed
While murderer Oscar Pistorius spent his first day after being released from prison on parole at home with family in Pretoria, June Steenkamp the mother of his fatally shot girlfriend Reeva marked the occasion privately at home.
Pistorius was released on Friday from Atteridgeville Correctional Centre into the care of his uncle, Arnold Pistorius, after having served nearly nine years of his sentence.
Steenkamp told the Sunday Times through her lawyer, Tania Koen, that she would spend the day at home with her daughter, Simone Cowburn. As they had done on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, they planned to light remembrance candles for June’s recently deceased husband, Barry, and Reeva.
“June will be spending the day at home with Simone and will be focusing on herself and coping with life without Barry, as well as on the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation that is her daughter’s legacy. Her focus has never been on Oscar,” said Koen.
“She understands the process and has been well prepared for this day, having known from the start that it would happen.
“June has always known that Oscar will leave prison at some point whether at the end of his sentence or on parole. So the parole hearing did not come as a surprise, and the decision to release him did not come as a surprise. Her expectations have been wellmanaged all along.”
Steenkamp was widowed in September when Barry died at the age of 80.
The couple had always said they could not forgive Pistorius while he stuck to his version about shooting their daughter with specialist ammunition believing she was an intruder, rather than admitting he had fired at her on purpose through a locked toilet door as she cowered in terror during an argument.
Koen said last year’s Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations were particularly hard for Steenkamp, as they were her first without both Reeva and Barry.
Her elder daughter Simone whom she had with her first husband moved to South Africa from the UK after the murder to look after her parents.
Steenkamp has received support from Rob and Sharon Matthews, whose daughter Leigh was also murdered. The families were united by uncannily similar tragedies both had attractive blonde daughters of the same age who were shot several times by perpetrators who were ultimately jailed for their killings. Both women would have celebrated their 40th birthday last year Reeva in June and Leigh in July.
In September, the Constitutional Court found Pistorius had served enough of his sentence to qualify for a parole hearing. Barry Steenkamp died in his sleep a month later.
Rob Matthews said that while Pistorius’s release had no direct impact on them, his worry is that the voices, rights and concerns of victims are often overlooked in the “race to release offenders”.
“I do think that in this case June has been heard and her concerns taken into account [with regard to] Pistorius’s parole conditions. That was a win we will take, but victims need to keep speaking up loudly and be involved in the process. It’s a hard fight for victims, who are often intimidated and retraumatised by the process. Their feelings count, and society also has the right to see that justice has been done,” he said.
He hoped that, in the same way that failing to report domestic violence and child abuse is a criminal offence in South Africa, it would in time become an offence for people not to report knowledge of offenders violating their parole conditions.