{Judge used the example of model’s parents refusing to meet athlete as he tried to apologise as a bad sign.}
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been handed a six-year jail term or murdering his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down the new sentence at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday morning after the Supreme Court upgraded his initial culpable homicide verdict to murder.
Judge Masipa said there were “substantial and compelling reasons” to deviate from the 15-year minimum sentence for murder, citing as one factor the continuing misperception that Pistorius had intended to kill his girlfriend.
She also considered the double-amputee offender’s condition, the offence, the influence of society and the victims of the offence. “The interests of society demand that people who commit serious crimes such as murder, be punished severely,” said Judge Masipa.
She said the perception that Pistorius deliberately murdered Ms Steenkamp continues to exist, despite the unavailability of a shred of evidence.
She dismissed the state’s argument that the accused showed no remorse. She used the example of Pistorius trying repeatedly to meet with Mr Barry and Mrs June Steenkamp to apologise for killing their daughter.
Judge Masipa also took into consideration that the former athlete had already served one year in jail for culpable homicide.
Pistorius maintains that he shot and killed Ms Steenkamp under the impression that there was an intruder in his bathroom.
Prosecutor Gerrie Nel had argued that Pistorius should go to prison for no less than 15 years, while defence advocate Barry Roux suggested a non-custodial sentence.
Judge Masipa said the rehabilitation programmes may not be sufficient now that Pistorius’s conviction has been upgraded to murder, the judge says.
But she said it indicated that he was a “good candidate for rehabilitation”.
VOLATILE MAN
The high-profile proceedings exposed the 29-year-old’s darker side: offering glimpses of a dangerously volatile man with a penchant for guns, beautiful women and fast cars.
In 2009, Pistorius said he spent a night in jail after allegedly assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a party in a case that was settled out of court.
Two years later, he was accused of firing a gun through the sunroof of an ex-girlfriend’s moving car, although a court found there was not enough evidence to convict him on that charge.
Weeks before he shot Ms Steenkamp, he discharged a gun by accident at a Johannesburg restaurant.
He was once held in Amsterdam after gunpowder residue was detected on his prosthetics, he also took a New York Times journalist interviewing him to a shooting range.
The writer described him driving at 250 kilometres an hour, double the speed limit, and referred to Pistorius as having “a fierce, even frenzied need to take on the world at maximum speed and with minimum caution”.
Pistorius has long been open about his love for guns. The sprinter slept with a pistol under his bed at his home in a high-security estate for fear of burglars.
The writer described him driving at 250 kilometres (155 miles) an hour, double the speed limit, and referred to Pistorius as having “a fierce, even frenzied need to take on the world at maximum speed and with minimum caution”.
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