I never got to tell Reeva that I loved her, says Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius said today that he never got the opportunity to tell his deceased girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp that he loved her.

He was responding to accusations from the chief prosecutor in the murder trial that the Olympic athlete displayed egotistical behaviour in his relationship with Ms Steenkamp before he killed her.

Gerrie Nel also described Pistorius’s courtroom apology to his girlfriend’s family as an insincere “spectacle” that ignored the feelings of her relatives.

“Your life is just about you,” the prosecutor said on a second day of cross-examination of Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp through a closed toilet door at his home in the early hours of February 14 last year.

Pistorius says he shot Steenkamp by accident, mistaking her for a dangerous intruder. The prosecution says he intentionally killed her after an argument.

Mr Nel’s questioning in the court in the South African city of Pretoria was designed to counter earlier evidence in which Pistorius said he loved Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, and was trying to protect her when he shot her without realising she was in the toilet.

Two contrasting images of the double-amputee runner have emerged in court: the defence-led image of Pistorius as a contrite man who had been worried about crime and made a terrible mistake on the night he killed Steenkamp, and the prosecution’s depiction of him as an overbearing egotist who was obsessed with guns.

Mr Nel said he had checked all Steenkamp’s text messages on her mobile phone and the phrase “I love you” appeared only twice. On both occasions, he said, they were written by Steenkamp to her mother.

“Never to you and you never to her,” Mr Nel said, addressing Pistorius.

“I never got the opportunity to tell Reeva that I loved her,” Pistorius said in a soft voice.

He did not look at Mr Nel while replying to the prosecutor’s questions, instead directing his gaze to Judge Thokozile Masipa.

Judge Masipa will deliver a verdict because there is no jury system in South Africa. Pistorius faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.

Mr Nel also accused Pistorius of ignoring the concerns of Steenkamp’s family by apologising to them at the beginning of his evidence this week, rather than seeking to express his condolences in private. Steenkamp’s mother June has attended court sessions this week.

“Why would you create a spectacle in court, in the public domain, in the public eye?” Mr Nel said. “Why did you put them through this?”

Pistorius said his lawyers had been in touch with representatives of Steenkamp’s family, and that he had believed the family of his girlfriend was not ready to meet him.

“I completely understand where they’re coming from,” he said. “It’s not that I haven’t thought about them.”