Pistorius told guard ‘everything is fine’ after shots heard

Members of police force stand on a bus stop to avoid heavy rain as they wait for Pistorius’s arrival at the High Court for day five of his murder trial in Pretoria.

AFP/Pretoria

Oscar Pistorius told a security guard “everything is fine” shortly after shots were heard from his home the night girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was killed, the court heard yesterday.

Pieter Baba, who works as a security guard at the Silverwoods Country Estate in Pretoria, testified that when he phoned the athlete to investigate the shots, Pistorius told him “security, everything is fine”.

But Baba noticed the Paralympian was crying.

“Not everything was in order as Mr Pistorius was telling me,” he said. “I then tried to speak to Mr Pistorius so that he can calm down.”

The security guard said the phone connection was lost, then he received another incoherent call from the sprinter.

“He just started crying over the phone,” said Baba, adding: “That’s when the line went off again, my lady.”

Pistorius, 27, has denied intentionally killing Steenkamp and has pleaded not guilty to three other charges, including one of firing a gun through a moving car’s sunroof and to illegal possession of ammunition.

Baba, wearing a collared red shirt and speaking through a translator, recounted that he entered Pistorius’s house to see the runner carrying mortally injured Steenkamp down the stairs.

“My lady I was so shocked,” said Baba, “I couldn’t even think for a few minutes.”

Defence lawyer Barry Roux questioned Baba if he heard the athlete correctly. “Did Mr Pistorius say ‘everything is ok’ or ‘is he ok’?” asked Roux.

“Mr Pistorius said security everything is fine,” insisted Baba.

Roux indicated that Pistorius would take the stand to give his account of events.

Earlier, the court heard emotional evidence from an ex-girlfriend of Pistorius, who testified that the Paralympian often carried a gun with him and once fired at a traffic light after a confrontation with police.

Samantha Taylor, who met Pistorius in 2010 when she was 17 years old, tearfully described the sprinter as someone familiar with guns, prone to fits of anger and an unfaithful boyfriend.

Taylor took to the stand in the morning, testifying that in 2010 on the way back from a day trip to a popular city getaway, Pistorius was in a car that was pulled over by the police for speeding.

When a police officer inspected Pistorius’s weapon, left on a seat when he exited the car, the sprinter became angry.

“Oscar shouted at the policeman and said he shouldn’t touch his gun,” said Taylor.

He later shot at a traffic light, “out of spite after being stopped”.

“He was angry at the police after being stopped, thereafter when they wanted to fire a shot they found it funny,” she said, referring to Pistorius and a friend with him at the time.

“Did you know, did the accused own a gun during your relationship?” asked state prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

“Yes, my lady,” said Taylor.

“How did you know that?” pressed Nel.

“He kept it on him all the time, my lady,” said Taylor.

Frequently breaking down in tears, Taylor, a softly spoken woman with Bambi eyes, dressed in a white jacket, recounted the history of the pair’s troubled relationship.

Taylor said they met at a rugby match and later “he added me on Facebook”.

She said the relationship ended in 2012 because “he cheated on me with Reeva Steenkamp”.

Pistorius took Steenkamp to the South African Sport Awards on November 4 that year.

The couple denied being together at the time.

“We’re just friends. I promise I’ll tell you if there’s anything more,” said Steenkamp when asked about her relationship with Pistorius at the event to local newspaper City Press. “It’s just a coincidence that we’re sitting at the same table and arrived in the same car.”

Taylor also dismissed the defence’s assertion that witnesses heard Pistorius and not Steenkamp scream on that February 14.

“That is not true, he sounds like a man” when he screams, she said.

Judge Thokozile Masipa adjourned court twice when Taylor broke down crying during her testimony.

Pistorius watched Taylor as she was consoled by her sister, clenching his jaw so hard the tendons in his cheek bulged.

Questions asked about judge

During the first week of Oscar Pistorius’s murder trial the judge presiding over the case has come under fire for giving defence lawyers too much leeway and not protecting witnesses.

With the trial broadcast live on television, presiding judge Thokozile Masipa has not escaped the scrutiny of millions watching around the world.

Criticism has centred on Masipa permitting a fierce line of questioning from Barry Roux, Pistorius’s defence lawyer known for his hectoring style of cross-examination.

He has reduced two female witnesses to tears and even read one witness’s cellphone number out in court, although he later apologised.

Major South African newspapers have run articles questioning if witnesses are now less likely to come forward, for fear they may face a Roux-like buzz saw.

But his badgering is par for the course, according to some of South Africa’s legal fraternity.

“So far I have not noticed any impropriety from the side of the judge,” said Mary Nel, a senior criminal law lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. “Cross examination is a robust court process, it can get really aggressive.”

It is crucial, according to Nel, that the judge does not appear to be taking sides by being too protective of the state witnesses. “The playing field must be level.”

“What we have seen so far is the cross examining of the state witnesses by the defence, the same will happen when the state gets to the defence witnesses,” she said adding that she expects the same kind of robustness.

Some have criticised Roux for asking witnesses questions seemingly unrelated to testimony or beyond the witness’s knowledge.

But according to Nel, sometimes “the pieces of the puzzle will be revealed at a later stage”.

Masipa has occasionally stepped in, but some believe she should have intervened more often.

Thea Illsley, a procedural law expert at the University of Pretoria said that the judge had at times been “decidedly leniently” with Roux.

“The judge is giving Roux leeway to paint a bigger picture of the events, to set a background and context ... that is understandable,” she said “Some of the questions seem to be beyond the witnesses knowledge.

“The judge has been allowing him to ask questions which may be eventually irrelevant.”

For now, most are willing to give Masipa, 66, the benefit of the doubt.

She was appointed a judge in 1998, only the second black woman to be admitted to the bench at the time.

Masipa studied law in her 40s. Before that she was a crime journalist and also was a social worker.

In a decade-and-a-half on the bench, she has presided over criminal cases involving rape and murder, and has spoken out strongly about violence against women.

She handed down a 252-year prison sentence to a serial rapist last year, and has been outspoken against the government’s rights and responsibilities towards ordinary South Africans.

But none of these cases saw the glare of a trial televised around the world.