Oscar never told Reeva he loved her

“I never got the opportunity to tell her I loved her,” Pistorius said during cross-examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

Nel was questioning the paralympic athlete about his relationship with his girlfriend in January and February 2013.

Nel said he examined WhatsApp messages on Steenkamp’s phone.

“The phrase ‘I love you’ appears twice on Reeva’s WhatsApp, both times to her mother, never to you.”

Pistorius is accused of the murder of Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on February 14 last year. He shot her through the locked door of his toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder. She was struck in the hip, arm and head.

Nel said Pistorius never sent Steenkamp a long message telling her how he felt about her.

“I was on my phone for a lot of other reasons. I didn’t write any long messages. I preferred to discuss things with her in private or when I saw her,” Pistorius replied.

In the first minute of Nel’s cross-examination he twice mentioned to Pistorius that Steenkamp “was killed by you”.

He has been at pains to point this out since he began questioning him on Monday.

Pistorius is also charged with contraventions of the Firearms Control Act.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013. On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

– Sapa