Physician questioned on Oscar’s running

University of Cape Town sports and exercise medicine professor Wayne Derman told the court he asked Pistorius to demonstrate how he had moved the night he shot dead his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

“I wanted to gauge what he meant by run,” Derman said during cross-examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

Nel asked Derman if Pistorius was able to run on his stumps without holding onto a wall. Derman said he was not sure.

Nel asked him if during the demonstration the athlete ran with his hand outstretched as if holding a gun.

“I can’t remember if he held his hand out like a gun.”

He said he remembered Pistorius walking, demonstrating holding a gun in his right hand, but could not recall if he did this when he ran.

Derman said he asked Pistorius to first show him how he moved down the corridor on February 14 last year before he shot Steenkamp. Then he asked him to show him how fast he could run on his stumps.

Nel asked Derman if he had ever see Pistorius walk backwards on his stumps and whether this was possible.

Derman said he had not seen it but could not say it was impossible.

A video of Pistorius re-enacting his shooting of Steenkamp was aired by an Australian television channel on Sunday evening.

The video, which the Beeld newspaper saw, has been broadcast only in Australia.

The Afrikaans daily said the documentary entitled “Running Scared” showed the Paralympian walking and running on his stumps, his sister Aimee lying in a bathroom next to a toilet, Pistorius picking her up and carrying her down the stairs, and Pistorius himself lying next to the toilet.

The first scene shows Pistorius in his uncle Arnold’s house walking on his stumps on two Persian carpets. The second scene shows him walking much faster on the same carpets with his right arm stretched out in front of him as if holding a pistol.

It shows a reconstruction of him firing four shots through the toilet door. Then it shows him, wearing his prostheses, kneeling and placing his sister at the bottom of the staircase in his uncle’s house.

In a statement on Sunday his lawyers described the broadcast as a “staggering breach of trust” and an invasion of the family’s privacy.

Brian Webber said Australia’s Channel 7 had purchased the footage unlawfully.

The National Prosecuting Authority on Monday said the prosecution team had not seen the video. There was no mention of the video during Monday’s court proceedings.

Pistorius is charged with murdering Steenkamp. He claims he shot her by accident through the locked door of the toilet in his home, thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him.

He broke the door down with a cricket bat to get to a dying Steenkamp. He has testified that he found her slumped over the toilet, picked her up and carried her downstairs.

The State contends he killed her during an argument.

– Sapa