Reeva Steenkamp's Father Tells Oscar Pistorius Sentencing He Stabbed Himself With Needles To 'Feel Her Pain'

The father of murdered model Reeva Steenkamp told Oscar Pistorius’s sentencing hearing of his struggle to cope since his daughter’s murder.

In a heartbreaking statement, Barry Steenkamp even described how he stabbed himself with needles to see if her could feel her pain.

The 73-year-old was close to tears and visibly shaking as he said: “Morning, noon, at night, early hours of the morning. I think about her all the time.

“People say it takes you two years, three years and you start feeling a bit better about the whole thing,” he added.

“But every day of my life is the same. I talk to her. If I see a feather, or something like that. Reeva is with me all the time, yes.

REEVA

 “I wouldn’t say I’m a recluse, but I can’t really mix with people anymore. I sit on my veranda, at two three or clock in the morning. I smoke my cigarettes and drink my coffee.

“I get messages virtually every day from people who support us. Photographs of Reeva. I must have a couple of hundred of them, which I go through every day.”

Olympian and Paralympian Pistorius is facing a jail term of at least 15 years after having his conviction upgraded from manslaughter to murder in December, following an appeal by the prosecution.

PISTORIOUS

The sentence given to the double amputee this week can be reduced due to time already spent in jail and mitigating factors, but he will have no right to appeal.

Pistorius, 29, fired four shots through a locked toilet door at 29-year-old Reeva, killing her on Valentines Day, 2013.

Mr Steenkamp told the court he thinks “all the time” of “what she must have gone through in those split seconds”

“She must have been in so much fear and pain,” he said. “That is what I think of all the time”.

Mr Steenkamp, who suffers from diabetes, said: “At times I thought the pain that Reeva went through I didn’t know if I was going mental or whatever.

“I’d go to my study and lean against the wall. I’d take the needle for my diabetes, I’d put it in my stomach and arms to see if I could feel the same kind of pain, but no.”

He refused to say how long he thinks Pistorius should be given in prison, but said: “Oscar has to pay for what he did, he has to pay for it.

“It’s up to the courts and we will go by the decision of whatever the court hands down to Oscar, but he has to pay for the crime.

“I don’t want to say he has to go for the maximum but he has to pay for it.”

  Mr Steenkamp said he still has “numerous” pictures of his daughter around his home and sets a place for her at the Christmas dinner table.

As Pistorius looked on almost expressionless, Mr Steenkamp told the court what happened on the night of the murder, when he received a phone call from his wife June.

“I was at work the day of the murder. When I train the horses, I used to get to work at 5.30, 6 in the morning.

“I got a phone call from June, I couldn’t really understand what she was so upset about, screaming and shouting.

“A first I thought one of our animals had got killed, she said come home.

 “I drove home and I tried to fathom what she had tried to tell me then I realised she mentioned Reeva and that’s when I started to panic and driving home I realised more and more, Reeva’s been killed.

“It’s like it happened yesterday.

“It was complete chaos when I got home. Thank God we had a friend of ours staying, if he wasn’t there I don’t know what we’d have done.

“He was trying to comfort June and I just can’t go into the whole thing and tell you exactly how we felt.”

“I don’t wish that on any human being finding out what happened.

“It devastated us. I ended up having a stroke.

“And now so many things since then have happened where I’ve gone to doctors, and to surgeons, which I still have to go into, for my heart, and everything like that. I don’t wish that on anybody in this whole world.”

Mr Steenkamp said he thought “there had been an argument” between his daughter and Pistorius on the night she was killed, but was stopped for legal reasons by State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel and explained that after press reports at the time he was close to bankruptcy were seen by his landlady they were forced to move out of their home.

He also revealed he was ‘disgusted’ when it came up in court that he and his wife had agreed, on the advice of his lawyers to receive money from the Pistorius family.

“It was discussed between the defence lawyers and our lawyers. They arranged that amongst themselves,” he said explaining how he was horrified when it came out in court having been promised it was “private and confidential”.

“I was disgusted when it came out that something like that could have been brought up. And immediately when we were offered 360,000 Rand (£16,500) we immediately declined it. We said we don’t want it. It makes no difference. It’s my daughter that’s gone. It’s not the money.

Mr Steenkamp said he had seen “only one photo” of Reeva’s murdered body, the one that was produced in court but that he wanted “the world to see” the others, as a warning to anyone thinking of using firearm and so “the world can see the wounds that were inflicted on Reeva and the pain she must have gone through.”

He also indicated he would be willing to meet Oscar Pistorius and “talk to him” but “not now, not yet”.

Mr Pistorius’s lawyer Barry Roux told him “there is nothing Mr Pistorius wants more”.

The sentencing hearing continues until Friday.

Mirror.co.uk reportage.

*This story is heart breaking....I had tears reading this and scrolling back and forth the photos.I pictured this old man crying for his beautiful daughter that is gone forever..Oscar sitting there stern faced and not knowing what to say...SAD!

If the Judge got emotional listening,if there is a jury that watched,hmmm oscar will not have an easy one handed to him.

Cant wait for Friday.

I still wonder what came over him?Abi he has Schizophrenia?