It was the first time he had been locked up in a year and a half. Not since he had sat in the full glare of the television cameras last February – while his bail application was fought over – had he known incarceration. And in the end, last night, he drove back to his Uncle Arnold’s house in the suburbs, as he has done at the end of every day in court in the last six months. Now convicted of firing four lethal gun shots through a door and into a tiny room he knew someone was in, of “negligence”, of the “use of excessive force”, for another month at least, he is still ostensibly a free man.
“There are no victors,” Arnold Pistorius said, in a short statement afterwards, in the courtroom where his family have now spent so much time. “Although it won’t bring Reeva back, our hearts go out to her family and friends.”
The Paralympic athlete was found guilty of culpable homicide for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and bailed ahead of sentencing. The guilty verdict came a day after the judge Thokozile Masipa cleared him of murder. Pistorius could receive anything from 15 years in prison to a suspended sentence – potentially meaning he could compete again as an athlete.