Pistorius in tears as he recalls death at trial

Oscar Pistorius leaves court during a break in his testimony yesterday. Picture: AP

The South African athlete told his murder trial he had heard noises coming from the toilet and believed an intruder was there.

“Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door,” he said.

He said he had got up from bed to bring in some fans he had left outside, in order to cool his bedroom.

When he heard a window opening in the bathroom, he said, he thought there was a burglar trying to get in.

Wanting to protect Reeva Steenkamp, 29, he had gone to get his gun in the dark, he said.

“I whispered to Reeva to get down and phone the police,” the 27-year-old sportsman said.

He said he then went into the passage near the bathroom without his prosthetic legs and shouted for Ms Steenkamp to get to the floor.

The double amputee athlete said tearfully: “I heard a noise from inside the toilet, what I perceived to be someone coming out of the toilet.” At that point, he shot at the door.

After the shooting, Pistorius said he had entered the toilet and discovered what he had done.

“Whilst I leant over the partition to get in, I saw the key, so I took it and I unlocked the door, and I flung the door open, and I threw it open,” he said, sobbing.

“And I sat over Reeva and I cried … and um, I don’t know how long … I don’t know how long I was there for … She wasn’t breathing.”

The court adjourned early when it was decided the athlete was too distraught to carry on giving evidence, when he began to cry and wail on the stand.

In his evidence yesterday, the athlete did not mention an argument he and his girlfriend were reported to have had that night, rather describing a quiet, couple’s night in.

The prosecution argues he killed her in a fit of rage, and neighbours have testified to hearing “loud voices” prior to the four shots Pistorius fired.

Pistorius also yesterday told how the couple had bought Valentine’s Day gifts for each other.

He had bought her a bracelet and they had been due to go the jewellers’ to collect it the next day, he said.

June Steenkamp, mother of Pistorius’s model girlfriend, stared straight ahead or looked at the athlete with an unfaltering stare as Pistorius gave evidence for a second day. At times she bowed her head as she heard his account of the night her daughter was shot by her boyfriend.

Shortly before Pistorius described in court how he had shot Reeva Steenkamp, his lawyer asked him to demonstrate his height without his prosthetic legs.

The court saw the athlete slowly walk on his stumps over to a mock-up of the toilet door.

Pistorius’s evidence in the witness stand is not being shown on television coverage of his trial, only his voice is heard.

Pistorius claims he was not wearing his prosthetics – and therefore felt more vulnerable – when he shot through the door to kill Ms Steenkamp.

The athlete denies deliberately shooting his girlfriend and faces up to 25 years in prison if he is convicted of her murder.