Members of the gallery react as Whats App messages from paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius are read out in court by Pistorius during his ongoing murder trial in Pretoria on Tuesday, 8 April 2014. Pistorius stands trial for the premeditated murder of Steenkamp in February 2013. Picture: Kim Ludbrook/EPA/Pool
“I think I initially just froze. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
“There is no barrier between me and the bathroom,” he said in a voice on the verge of breaking.
He had woken up in the early hours of February 14 2013 and noticed that Steenkamp was also awake.
“She rolled over to me and said ‘can’t you sleep my baba’,” he said.
She replied that she could not and he had gone and moved fans and was about to place a pair of jeans over an amplifier light when he heard what sounded like a bathroom window opening.
“That’s the moment that everything changed. I thought that there was a burglar that was gaining entry to my home.”
He said he immediately thought someone could be there at any moment.
The first thing he thought was: “… I needed to arm myself, that I needed to protect Reeva and that I needed to get my gun.”
He has denied that he murdered Reeva and two other charges related to the Firearms Act.
Earlier, he admitted that he was holding a firearm when it was discharged at Tasha’s in Melrose Arch although he has pleaded not guilty to that charge too.
The other Firearm Act charge relates to firing a gun out of the sunroof of a car in Modderfontein.
The court adjourned for lunch.
– Sapa
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