At Pistorius sentencing hearing, Reeva Steenkamp’s father tells of lasting pain from losing his daughter

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa —  After his daughter was killed by former South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius in 2013, Barry Steenkamp was told the pain would gradually dull with time.

“But every day is still the same,” he said Tuesday, choking back sobs as he testified at Pistorius’ sentencing hearing for the killing of Reeva Steenkamp, who was Pistorius’ girlfriend.

Steenkamp told Pretoria’s High Court that he still thinks of his daughter “all the time.”

It was the first testimony by either of Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, who did not take the stand at the murder trial and generally speak to the media through a lawyer.

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Last year Pistorius was convicted of the murder of Steenkamp by firing four times through a toilet cubicle door at his house on Valentine’s Day 2013. He said he thought she was an intruder.

He had been convicted in September 2014 of culpable homicide, South Africa’s term for a reckless but unintentional killing, and sentenced to five years in prison and served a year in the hospital wing of Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria. The Supreme Court of Appeal last year overturned that verdict, convicting him of murder.

The sentencing phase began Monday, with trial Judge Thokozile Masipa hearing testimony and arguments. She is expected to hand down her new sentence this week.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel is seeking a sentence of at least 15 years.

Barry Steenkamp testified Tuesday that he keeps thinking about the moment his daughter was shot.

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

He said he used to prick himself in the knuckles and arms with a needle, imagining her death, “to see if I could feel the same amount of pain.”

Steenkamp said that his wife, June, has forgiven Pistorius, but that he found it very difficult. He said June Steenkamp’s forgiveness didn’t exonerate Pistorius from serving time for murder.

The appeal court based its murder conviction on its finding that Pistorius must have realized that firing four times into the cubicle would kill the person inside.

Steenkamp said he often sits on his veranda at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning smoking and looking through hundreds of photographs of Reeva. He said that his wife has often been portrayed as stony-faced and strong, but that she grieves just as much as he does.

“I know that June grieves like I do all the time,” he said. “I hear her at night. I hear her cry. I hear her talking to Reeva. She feels just as much as I do.”

Pistorius, a double amputee who competed in the 2012 Olympics in London running on prosthetic legs, will not testify at the hearing. His lawyer, Barry Roux, told Steenkamp in court, “We are so sorry,” adding that he understood nothing would bring back his daughter.

The prosecution called a prison nurse, Charlotte Mashabane, who testified that Pistorius became angry and threatening on three occasions when he didn’t get his way.

He sometimes shouted at her and other nurses when they entered his cell to do daily medical rounds, Mashabane said.

“He became angry. He just shouted, screaming. He said I must get out,” Mashabane said.

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