Those pictures of Reeva

to counter Barry Steenkamp’s powerful testimony the day before, experts say. Shaking violently and in a voice cracking with emotion, Barry spoke of the pain of losing his beloved daughter and how he often stabbed himself with his diabetic needle in an attempt to feel the pain she felt the night Oscar shot her four times.

Oscar’s stump walk might have been carefully planned following Barry’s testimony. Attorney Michael Motsoeneng, a criminal law expert, says there’s very little that plays out in court that hasn’t been thought out extensively.

“Everything is a matter of strategy,” Motsoeneng says. “Before Oscar removed his legs the public saw him as tall and upright, a well-dressed young man who had travelled the world as an athlete. But his team would want to drive home that that wasn’t the Oscar who shot Reeva.”

The man who shot his girlfriend was less than 1,5 m tall, wobbly and vulnerable on his stumps. “Roux was reminding the judge that the person being sentenced was at a disadvantage.”

The stump walk seemed manipulative, criminal law expert Riaan Louw told City Press, but it would have driven home the point. “It was obviously a shock tactic to get a lesser sentence.”

Johannesburg attorney Tyrone Maseko says the court has to consider Oscar’s personal circumstances. “But while there’s no denying Oscar will struggle physically with the daily routine of prison life, that alone can’t absolve him from his culpability of the crime.” Gerrie Nel countered Oscar’s stump display by appealing for the ban on the crime scene pictures of the deceased to be lifted, pointing out that even Barry Steenkamp wanted the world to see “what those bullets did, what the accused did”.

Judge Masipa eventually agreed. She said she was lifting the ban because it was the state which had asked for the ban in the first place. “This was done during the trial to protect the wellbeing of the deceased’s parents and family.”

Now that the family had agreed to allow the pictures to be published, she

‘Roux was reminding the judge that the person being sentenced was at a disadvantage’

couldn’t object, she said. The pictures were in any event part of the public record, which was freely available.

It was a shrewd move on Nel’s part, Maseko says. “He wanted the impact of the pictures to be felt and for the court and public to be reminded of how tragic and brutal Reeva’s death was.”

The purpose was to overshadow any sympathy the court may have been feeling for Oscar. Motsoeneng says he would have done the same thing.

“The reality is you have one chance to prove your case and for that reason I’d have employed the same strategy,” he adds.