Oscar Pistorius went the extra mile for children

“He always made time for children, especially for children with disability… he really went the extra mile,” Pistorius’s manager Petrus van Zyl testified.

He was being re-examined by Barry Roux, for Pistorius.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel earlier concluded his cross-examination of Van Zyl, during which he questioned Pistorius’s motives behind his charity work.

Nel asked if the athlete did charity to market himself and out of an obligation to his sponsors.

On September 12 Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder.

Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp. The State had argued he killed her during an argument.

Roux questioned Van Zyl on Pistorius’s attitude to his charity work.

“Mr Pistorius made himself always available (sic). He never had any complaints,” he replied.

Roux concluded his questioning. Masipa asked her assessors if they had any questions for Van Zyl, before she excused him from the stand.

Roux then called the next witness, probation officer Annette Vergeer. She had short black hair, with a shock of highlights framing her face.

Masipa also found Pistorius guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges – illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.

– Sapa

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