Reeva Steenkamp's dad opens up on ‘traumatising’ Oscar Pistorius prison visit
Topics: World News
Jess Hardiman
Featured Image Credit: ITV/Abaca Press/Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: World News
The parents of Reeva Steenkamp have opened up about visiting Oscar Pistorius in prison, saying they wanted to know the ‘truth’ about their daughter’s death.
The 29-year-old model was shot dead by Pistorius in 2013, after which the South African Paralympian claimed he thought he was shooting an intruder at his Pretoria home.
Pistorius, 36, was originally found guilty of culpable homicide, but after an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa in 2015, this was overturned and he was convicted of murder.
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He has currently served half of his 13-year sentence, and is eligible for parole this year.
In an interview with Good Morning Britain today (Tuesday 14 February) - 10 years since Steenkamp’s death - June and Barry Steenkamp have spoken about what it was like to go and meet their daughter’s killer in prison.
When presenter Ranvir Singh asked how Pistorius had been during the visit, Barry said: "Naturally, anybody who has been in prison and you've killed or murdered somebody, there's always remorse after that.
"Except for the odd person who doesn't care, but I'm sure that he did have remorse after shooting Reeva.
"When I went and met Oscar I asked him certain questions.
"All June and I wanted to know was the truth - what we feel was the truth - that he actually killed her because of anger."
He continued: “I didn’t get the answers that I wanted. So, it could have taken us the whole day but in the end it was shortened by me saying we aren’t getting the answers that we want. And we’ll leave it at that. Now only Oscar knows the true story.”
June did not go to visit Pistorius behind bars and instead chose to give her husband a letter to read.
“It was really traumatising for myself and also for June that wasn’t there," Barry added.
"She couldn't wait for me to get home and find out what had gone on.”
June then went on: “I wrote a letter to him because I was actually afraid of what I would do. I didn’t know how I would react and because of that I decided not to go.
“I wrote a letter for Oscar that he had taken the most precious thing we got from God and all the things he had taken away from me - a grandchild, Reeva's wedding, her wedding dress, she would never be able to do her law degree. Everything he had taken away from us.”