Flip-flops back in Oscar Trial

Police photographer Warrant Officer Barend van Staden testified he had just moved the gym bag they were near, but had not moved the flip-flops, known as “plakkies” locally.

Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius, said the pair of casual footwear had been photographed in three different positions according to evidence submitted at his trial in the High Court in Pretoria.

In one picture they are neatly placed together to the left of Pistorius’s bed, in another, one is apart, and in another they are photographed next to a gym bag.

“Your honour the plakkies… I don’t know who moved it. The sports bag I moved,” said Van Staden.

Asked why it did not indicate that evidence had been moved in his descriptions of the photographs, he said sometimes he focused on another object when taking a photograph.

He did not unpack the gym bag at the scene, but at a later stage, he told the court.

Details such as the positioning of the flip-flops and other items found on the scene could become important later in the trial when Pistorius’s version of events on the morning of the shooting is tested.

He said in his bail statement that he slept on the left of the bed because he had a shoulder injury. Pistorius wears prosthetic legs after a double amputation. He is famous for his achievements at the Paralympics and Olympic Games on specially designed legs as the “blade runner”.

He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Steenkamp, saying he thought there was an intruder in his house in the security estate of Silver Wood in Pretoria when he fired four shots into a toilet cubicle.

He realised she was in there afterwards, he said.

– Sapa