Sunday 14th September

One wonders if this weekend Oscar will be relieved or full of trepidation.  After all – it could have been far worse.  The trial has kept us captivated for months and most had made their minds up long ago.  He must have been guilty; how could he have not known Reeva was in the bathroom; four shots – why four shots, etc, etc, etc.  And it must be hard for us to understand even how someone could sleep with a loaded gun next to their bed, let alone assume that a noise in the middle of the night was an intruder.  If I hear a noise in the night, I always assume it is my partner.  And after all the evidence, the relevance or not of his prosthetic legs, the angles of the shots, the various testimonies of nieghbours – were there screams before as well as after the shots; we are really none the wiser.  And we are puzzled too by the absence of a jury, but maybe the idea of a judge assisted by two assessors who calmly sift all the evidence and testimonies rather than ordinary people who may have already formed an opinion is better after all.  Can anyone nowadays say that a “Celebrity” gets a fair trial at all; is it possible to not be influenced by newspaper and 24 hour media reporting?   I have no idea if Oscar knew it was Reeva behind the toilet door, only he knows that.  And actually on reflection the verdict of culpable homicide is about right.  Whoever Oscar thought he was shooting, it was incredibly reckless to have done so.

Now there will be a long wait for the sentence, and arguments from both sides as to the rights or wrongs of whatever is handed down; none of which will make the tragedy any better, or the fall from grace of Oscar any easier to bear.  Or will probably deter any other rich white people from keeping guns at home in a society of millions of poor black people.  But it will at last close the chapter on one of the most talked about cases for a long time.