Boost for defence as Pistorius trial hears damning portrait of police

A damning portrait of South African police, contaminating evidence and stealing from the citizens they are supposed to protect, was painted at the trial of Oscar Pistorius yesterday, raising doubts over the credibility of the murder case against him.

Two luxury wristwatches worth thousands of pounds went missing from the Paralympic athlete’s bedroom on the day that he was arrested for the killing of his girlfriend, according to Mr Pistorius’s defence team. A former police colonel admitted in court that one of the watches had been stolen virtually from under his nose.

The boost for the defence came after the court was shown the first photos taken of Mr Pistorius in the aftermath of the shooting. Bare-chested and looking shellshocked, he was standing on blood-stained prosthetic legs and wearing shorts covered in blood. The “blade runner” denies murder, contending that he shot Reeva Steenkamp through a locked toilet door because he thought she was an intruder.

Blood-spattered box
Former police colonel Schoombie van Rensburg, who was among the first on the scene of the incident on Valentine's day 2013, testified that experts examined a blood-spattered box containing eight wristwatches, worth about 50,000-100,000 rand, and that one went missing even after he warned his officers against theft.

Col Van Rensburg described his reaction when he was later told a watch was gone. “I said, ‘I can’t believe it. We were just there. How can this watch be gone?’” Suddenly his own colleagues were under suspicion. “We body-searched everyone. We searched the whole house. We even searched the vehicles of every expert at the scene.”

This proved fruitless and a theft docket was opened, he said. “I was furious.”

Defence counsel Barry Roux put it to Col van Rensburg that an additional watch that had been lying on top of a cabinet was also missing. The former station commander denied knowledge of a second theft.

Col Van Rensburg, who retired last December, said he later found another investigator mishandling the 9mm pistol that was used to kill Ms Steenkamp and discarded on a blood-soaked bathroom mat.

“At that particular moment the ballistics expert was handling the firearm without gloves,” Col van Rensburg said. “I was busy talking on my cellphone when I heard the firearm had been cocked. I stopped talking and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said sorry and put the magazine back in the firearm ... So immediately I was very angry.”

Valuable evidence
The ex-colonel said he recognised the toilet door through which Mr Pistorius shot as the "most valuable" piece of evidence and decided to take it away in the biggest body bag available. He conceded: "As we carried this door, the loose panels of this door were shifting and we were afraid it was going to crack the body bag, which was plastic."

Then there was a problem finding a big enough vehicle to transport the door. Col Van Rensburg said he stored the door in his office at the station because it was too big to fit in the area normally reserved for evidence from crime scenes.
– ( Guardian service)