One Tragic Night (67 page)

She is also at pains to clear up an allegation made in court by her ex-boyfriend – that she and Darren Fresco conspired against him about the sunroof shooting.

‘I would just like to say that the last time I ever spoke to Darren Fresco was when he threatened me over the phone to never come in their space again – when he threatened me was when Oscar and I had broken up the last time. He threatened me not to come back to Joburg, I had never been so badly spoken to by a man. It was so degrading. The first time after Oscar and I had ended that I saw Darren was in the witness room where he came to apologise to me about the way he spoke to me over the phone. The first time I saw him after the incident was in the courtroom. He had come to apologise to me in front of my lawyer. And you know what? If his defence team wants to put it on us that we had colluded, I would like them to please show me proof of phone calls and meetings.' Fresco declined to comment about Taylor's claim that he threatened her over the phone on Oscar's behalf or that he apologised to her in court.

Taylor also has a response to Oscar's claim that she had created a fake profile on Twitter to attack Reeva. ‘In court Oscar made a comment about me creating a fake profile on Twitter to say nasty things to Reeva, which made her feel insecure. Again I would like them to show me proof and provide a track record. Any comments I have made in the past have come from my own account. We have managed to track the main member of “Pistorians” down, but took no further action on her as she doesn't seem to be any type of threat to me,' says Taylor, referring to the group on Twitter who rabidly defend the athlete.

Taylor wasn't entirely surprised by Oscar's emotional outbursts while on the stand. ‘He is a very emotional person. I know when we used to fight, he used to cry all the time, but I think he played his role quite well, you know, when there's
something sad, you're sad and when there's something that's good for you then you're okay with it.'

Once she had heard Oscar's testimony on the stand, Taylor revealed in an interview more about her take on the room and the events of that night. Does she believe it could be plausible? That the events could possibly have occurred as he stated?

Oscar's denials continued as he faced a quizzing on ‘Count 3', the Tashas accidental discharge. Oscar recalled, as Lerena and Fresco had earlier, the lunchtime meeting at the restaurant to discuss the boxer's diet, as well as the athlete's eagerness to purchase a new firearm similar to Fresco's.

‘It was stupid of me,' he acknowledged, ‘and I asked if I can see his firearm.' Oscar did not dispute that he asked to see Fresco's gun, nor that he had handled
it under the table in the busy eatery. He said he wanted to make sure that the weapon was safe – that it did not have a round in the chamber – and in the process of sliding the mechanism back he said a bullet was ejected from the weapon.

‘… And the next thing I knew, a round went off.'

Oscar said he was angry at Fresco for passing him a loaded weapon that had a magazine in it, but was also relieved that no one had been hurt. He quickly returned the firearm to its owner under the table.

But, contrary to previous witness testimony, Oscar said it was Fresco who volunteered to take responsibility for the shooting by explaining that if anyone should ask, his firearm had accidentally gone off because it had fallen on the floor.

‘I believed at that point that we both were to blame – I made a mistake for asking for a firearm in a restaurant and he made a mistake of giving me a firearm which was loaded and carrying one up. He told me not to say anything,' said Oscar, while conceding that he was concerned about the implications of news about the incident reaching the media.

The athlete said while Fresco told restaurant owner Loupis the fabricated story about the handgun being caught on his pants, he then owned up and told him that it was his fault before offering to pay for the damages and settling the bill.

For Nel, though, this was not responsibility enough. During cross-examination, he pushed the line he had followed throughout the process – that Oscar never believed he was responsible for anything and always shirked guilt.

‘Talking about faults and taking responsibility, let us deal with the Tashas incident. Can you please explain to me why you pleaded not guilty,' asked Nel.

Oscar said he did so because he did not discharge the firearm. He was adamant.

‘I physically did not discharge the firearm, My Lady, the firearm went off when it was in my possession but I did not have my finger … and I do not remember having my finger on the trigger,' he said.

The main attack on Oscar's defence in this regard was Mangena's testimony about the Glock's safety mechanism – that it is impossible for the Glock to discharge without someone actively pulling the trigger. Roux did not challenge Mangena on his evidence and the defence's ballistic expert Wollie Wolmarans would not contest it either. ‘Then will you not accept that your finger was on the trigger, because that gun cannot discharge if your finger was not on the trigger,' said Nel, but the accused would not accept the proposition.

If it was always Oscar's version that his finger was not on the trigger when the firearm went off, why did his senior counsel not question the expert witness about this? The accused could certainly not explain it. ‘If Mr Roux did not put
that question to Mr Mangena, My Lady, then I am sure he has got a good reason for not doing so,' said Oscar. He was shifting responsibility to his legal team – but this was not the first or last time they were ‘thrown under the bus' during cross-examination.

Nel, however, refused to accept the explanation; he knew Roux too well. The advocates had been adversaries for years and the prosecutor was sure that the senior counsel would not have slipped up like this. Nel told the court he believed Roux would never make such a mistake, and rather the reason he hadn't challenged Mangena was because it was never Oscar's version.

It was Nel's relentless questioning on this that eventually pushed the accused to make the admission that the state needed. ‘The firearm went off whilst it was in my possession, I take responsibility for the firearm going off when it was in my possession,' Oscar told the court, ‘but I cannot say my finger was on the trigger when it was not on the trigger.'

Oscar explained as he was clearing the firearm the shot went off and ‘I didn't have time to think'. This was the exact phrase he had used a day earlier when Nel was asking him about the four shots he fired through the door when he shot Reeva after claiming to have heard a noise. It's a phrase he'd repeat numerous times throughout his cross-examination.

‘I did not have time to think,' said Nel, dismissively, antagonising the accused. ‘We had that yesterday as well. So that is one of your defences. “I did not have time to think. I am a gun enthusiast, I did not have time to think.”'

The fourth firearm-related charge was as a result of ammunition found in Oscar's safe on the morning of the shooting. When investigators started sifting through Oscar's house and cataloguing the evidence they came across a beige electronic safe, similar to those found in hotel rooms, in his bedroom cupboard. It was hidden behind a neatly stacked pile of T-shirts and in it Oscar stored medals from the Paralympic Games in 2004 (Athens), 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London), as well as a krugerrand amongst other items. Also in the safe was a blue box of 50
pmp
, 158-grain .38 Special rounds. Oscar said he understood the charge, but he had never owned a .38 calibre firearm nor had he ever purchased .38 calibre ammunition.

‘That ammunition was my father's for a firearm that he had registered or has registered in his name and he simply had it at my house for safekeeping. It was not mine, it was not in my possession. My understanding of the law is, you are allowed to give your ammunition to somebody for safekeeping. It does not have to be in your safe,' he said.

Oscar told Nel that he had two safes in his house: one downstairs to which he had sole access and a safe in his bedroom, which several people had access to via a combination lock. The prosecutor first took issue with the fact that Oscar claimed to keep ammunition in a safe to which several people had access, but he said he didn't keep his own ammunition there – he had a spare magazine in his bedside table and kept his firearm-cleaning kit in the safe downstairs.

Oscar testified that his father had asked if he could keep his ammunition in the upstairs safe, and that Henke had placed it in the safe on his own when his son was not there. Oscar could not say when it was placed there, only that it had been in the safe for quite some time.

Then Nel played what he thought to be his trump card. Henke Pistorius had refused to make a statement admitting that the ammunition in the safe was his. The assumption was that this was because of a breakdown in their relationship that saw Henke effectively ostracised from the Pistorius family. The accused, however, was unaware of his father's refusal to assist. ‘My father and I have not had communication between the two of us, for many years. I have spoken to him, but there has not been a relationship,' admitted Oscar. ‘He would sometimes come up to Pretoria or Johannesburg. He asked me if he could keep the ammunition in my safe. I said that he is more than welcome to and I let him do so.'

Nel then turned to Oscar's firearm competency tests in which he correctly answered that you may possess a particular type of ammunition only if you have a licence for that particular firearm or you are a firearm dealer. Oscar said that after consulting with Roux about his understanding of the law, the advocate confirmed his thoughts on it.