Walking on crime scene ‘unprofessional’ – Oscar trial

Barry Roux, SC, for Pistorius, asked Roger Dixon in the High Court in Pretoria about shoe prints visible in photos of the toilet door through which the paralympian shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on February 14 last year.

He is charged with murdering her.

When Pistorius broke down the door with his cricket bat after shooting through it, the panels fell to the floor. The force of the blows shook loose plaster dust from the wall, into which the first police officers on the scene stepped.

Roux asked Dixon what the marks said about preservation of a crime scene.

“It is most unprofessional when you get to the crime scene. Unless there’s a need to save a life… there’s no need to walk on a crime scene.

“Walking over panels, in my experience of crime scenes, it’s unfortunate.”

Dixon went on to discuss the effects of Black Talon bullets on meranti wood. Pistorius sat upright and listened as Dixon used terms like “intermediate target” and “secondary missiles”.

As soon as Dixon moved on to discussing bullet wounds in Steenkamp’s body, beginning with the phrase “when the body of the deceased was washed”, Pistorius pinched the bridge of his nose, leaned forward, and pressed his thumbs into his ears.

Pistorius says he mistook her for an intruder about to come out and attack him.

Pistorius is furthermore charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act, on which he has also denied guilt.

– Sapa