Oscar Pistorius dropped to his knees and wept as he apologised to the father of his murder victim, a new documentary reveals.
Barry Steenkamp says in My Name Is Reeva: “He gave me his truth, but I didn’t get my truth.”
It was the pair’s first face-to-face meeting since the former Paralympic icon killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 in his apartment in the South African city of Pretoria.
Pistorius, 35, continued to claim he had shot Ms Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door by accident.
“He came in, he went on his knees and he took my hand and shook it. He thanked me and told me how sorry he was and how he can’t stop thinking about that moment. I didn’t say I forgive you, I just said ‘Thank you’,” Mr Steenkamp said.
Mr Steenkamp’s wife, June, declined to be part of the “victim-offender dialogue” which is part of the parole process.
Instead she told the programme she had written to Pistorius saying: “You have stolen her life”.
Pistorius was initially convicted of manslaughter and handed a six-year sentence. However the Supreme Court of Appeal upgraded that to murder conviction and increased the sentence to 15 years following a government appeal.
Lawyers for Pistorius and the case management committee at Atteridgeville prison in Pretoria are in dispute over when the sentence began.
According to News24, appraisals by his supervisors show he has completed rehabilitation programmes and has a low risk of reoffending. He is said to be working as a cleaner in the special care unit, is a weighlifting coach and is a member of a book club and a gardening project.
