It was an emotional meeting between Oscar Pistorius and the daddy of the girl he murdered; Reeva Steenkamp.
According to Barry Steenkamp, there was not a dry eye within the room while he engaged with Pistorius as a part of the Correctional Service’s Victim Offender Dialogue, again in June.
The programme varieties a part of the rehabilitation of offenders who’re being thought-about for parole. It seeks to supply closure for the sufferer’s household and a way for the offender to hunt forgiveness.
The aged father of the slain mannequin – who was shot and killed on Valentine’s Day in 2013 – shared his touching account in Thursday night time’s closing instalment of M-Net’s hard-hitting documentary My Name Is Reeva.
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REEVA’S DAD MEETS PISTORIUS
For the primary time, Reeva’s father Barry has shared details of his “difficult and traumatic” meeting with Pistorius.
Whilst Barry agreed to fulfill the previous Paralympian – at the moment serving a 13-year and five-month jail sentence – his spouse June declined.
But the meeting on the Qheberha correctional facility didn’t reside as much as the requirements that Reeva’s grieving dad anticipated.
He stated within the doccie: “You arrive there thinking you’re going to say this and that, but it doesn’t work out that way. It’s just a sad, sad thing.
“I asked him certain questions…and I expected different answers. He gave me his truth, but I didn’t get my truth”.
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Barry detailed a touching second when Oscar Pistorius requested to shake his hand after the meeting.
He continued: “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 [Reeva’s death].
“It was a touching moment. I could’ve said no and left it but we did shake hands. I didn’t say I forgive you, I just said thank you”.
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‘HE DIDN’T TELL BARRY THE TRUTH’
Accompanying Barry throughout the meeting was the Steenkamp household lawyer Tania Koen.
She stated of the expertise: “The feeling in the room was an overwhelming sense of grief and sadness because, on the one hand, we had Barry, the father of Reeva who had to face his daughter’s killer. And on the other hand, Oscar was obviously sad, full of remorse and regret and also very tearful”.
However, she shortly added of Pistorius: “I don’t believe Oscar’s version, and I don’t believe he told Barry the truth”,
‘YOU STOLE HER LIFE’
Whilst Barry in the end agreed to let the “law take its course” on Oscar Pistorius’s parole petition, his spouse June was not so forthcoming.
Reading out a letter she wrote to Oscar, Reeva’s mom expressed her heartache of how her daughter would by no means marry, beginning a baby or full her legislation diploma. “You have stolen her life”, she added.
When requested if she believed if Pistorius was remorseful, June claimed: “If he’s destroyed by what he’s achieved now, that might be a very good factor.
“I don’t know if that is the truth. There were so many lies during the court case that he may not have been really remorseful”.
And though she didn’t bodily attend the Victim Offender Dialogue meeting, June nonetheless had a message for Pistorius. She stated “I’d say to him: ‘Give out the reality and you’ll be forgiven. God will assist him if he tells the reality.
“He’s never going to be free until he does that”.
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WHERE DOES PISTORIUS STAND ON PAROLE PLEA?
Meanwhile, Oscar Pistorius is at the moment combating for his proper to obtain a parole listening to and in the end get an early launch.
According to calculations made by his authorized workforce, they consider Pistorius grew to become eligible for parole in February 2021. However, the Atteridge jail, the place he spent nearly all of his sentence, claims that Pistorius will solely develop into eligible in March 2023.
Pistorius was convicted of culpable murder in October 2014. This was later upgraded to homicide in December 2015. He was handed a six-year jail sentence. However, the Supreme Court of Appeal elevated his jail time period to 13 years and 5 months following an unsuccessful attraction in November 2017.
According to News24, Pistorius’s authorized workforce filed an order final month to drive the chairperson of the parole board at Atteridgeville jail to “convene a parole hearing” for him “within 30 days following the granting of this order”.
Pistorius can also be in search of that every one documentation, together with a social employee’s report, psychologist’s report, vocational report, unit supervisor’s report, and the case administration committee’s report be made accessible for the listening to.
A parole listening to has but to be scheduled.
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