‘Are you sure you were alone?’ – Roux

“When you took the photos are you sure you were alone up there?” Barry Roux asked during Pistorius’s murder trial.

He was cross-examining police photographer Warrant Officer Barend van Staden.

“I’m certain of it,” Van Staden replied.

He was referring to the time he took photos of Pistorius’s bathroom and bedroom, on the first floor of the paralympic athlete’s Pretoria house, in the early morning of February 14, 2013. Steenkamp had been shot dead in the toilet several hours earlier.

Roux asked Van Staden about two other police officers who were apparently on the scene with Van Staden at the same time, around 6am.

Roux put it to Van Staden that one of the officers, from the ballistics section of the forensics laboratory, was taking photos of the scene at the same time as Van Staden.

“There was a great overlap between you and Colonel Motta. You were together when you said you were alone.”

Van Staden replied he would have to look at the data of the photos, such as when they were taken, to verify this.

Roux then embarked on a meticulous analysis of which photos were taken where in the house, and at what time.

Van Staden is attached to the photography section of the Local Criminal Record Centre. He has been with the centre for 12 years, and in the police for 21.

In addition to a charge of murder, Pistorius is charged with contraventions of the Firearms Control Act. He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On September 30, 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

– Sapa