Reeva was a fun-loving child – cousin

“Reeva was a very fun-loving child. She wanted to look after everybody, even adults,” Martin said to questions from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

She was testifying in sentencing proceedings for Oscar Pistorius, found guilty last month of his girlfriend Steenkamp’s culpable homicide.

As Martin spoke Pistorius sat in the dock, kept his head down and did not look at Martin. At one point he passed a note to a member of his legal team, Brian Webber, who passed it to his lawyer Barry Roux.

Martin said Steenkamp “stood out, even from a young age”.

She once took it upon herself to carry her mother June’s paralysed poodle around so it would not be put down.

Questioned about her family’s past, Martin, who frequently sighed, said Steenkamp’s parents had always struggled financially.

“Financially they really battled.”

She recounted how the Steenkamps moved from Table View, Cape Town, to Port Elizabeth, so Steenkamp’s father Barry could pursue his career as a horse racing trainer.

“Once again, when you are dealing with animals, it’s very, very difficult, and their financial situation started to deteriorate again.”

Steenkamp’s mother June opened a laundry, which did very well.

“But it was very long hours. Lots and lots of hard work.”

On September 12 Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of the culpable homicide of model and law graduate 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.

Masipa 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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