Woman screaming was Oscar

“They [the neighbours] heard a woman screaming but it was you?” prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked Pistorius during cross-examination.

“That’s correct my lady. My voice is the only voice screaming that night,” Pistorius replied.

Pistorius is charged with murdering Steenkamp during an argument. He shot her through the locked door of his toilet on February 14 last year, saying later he mistook her for an intruder.

On Monday, Pistorius said he was screaming and shouting in the passage.

Neighbours in the Silverwoods Estate earlier testified that they heard a woman shouting and screaming. One described the screams as “blood-curdling”.

Pistorius said the screaming heard between the “shots” was himself screaming.

“When I was hitting the door with the cricket bat I was screaming and shouting,” he explained.

Nel questioned Pistorius what he was screaming and when.

As Pistorius paused before answering a question, Nel asked: “Mr Pistorius is there a problem? You are quiet.”

However, Judge Thokozile Masipa intervened: “Just give him time. He is thinking.”

Pistorius responded: “That was me. I was screaming out for Reeva to call the police.”

He said he screamed for her to phone the police until the time he got to the bed.

“I screamed Reeva’s name out because I wanted to know where she was,” he said.

“When I hit the door with the bat I was screaming out.”

Pistorius said he had had his voice tested after the shooting and his defence counsel had a recording. He was taken to his Pretoria home for testing.

Nel questioned Pistorius on why the recording was never played to the State witnesses to identify the screams as the ones they heard on the night.

The athlete said he did not know.

Nel asked: “Wouldn’t that be the best thing to do?”

Pistorius responded: “My lady… What they [my counsel] decide to ask and decide not to ask is up to them.”

Nel questioned: “For you, don’t you think it would be prudent to play the recording so the witnesses can say if that’s what they heard?”

Pistorius said: “I don’t know my lady.”

Pistorius said he had never screamed like that before.

“My lady, I have not screamed like that before… I can’t remember what I shouted like on that night… I screamed out for Reeva,” he said.

He described his screams as a scream of passion.

Earlier, Nel asked Pistorius if he had heard the toilet door lock.

Nel asked a police officer to go into the mock-up toilet cubicle in the courtroom and put the keys in the door.

He asked him to demonstrate what it would sound like if the door was locked, and how far one would have to reach if the door was completely open if one wanted to close it.

Pistorius said he never heard the door lock.

Nel asked him why and Pistorius replied: “Maybe the door was slammed and locked at the same time.”

Nel responded: “You see, we have to think of all those things to make your version probable.”

Pistorius said he was shouting at the time the door was locked.

He said he could also not remember when the lights were switched on in the bathroom.

Pistorius is also charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act, one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public.

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.

Pistorius has also denied guilt on these three charges.

– Sapa