Trial into the death of Reeva Steenkamp continues in Pretoria.Click here to watch a live stream of the court proceedings from South Africa.
A former girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius has told of how the champion athlete carried a gun with him much of the time and even shot at a set of traffic lights after being pulled over for speeding by police.
An emotional Samantha Taylor, who met Pistorius in 2010 when she was 17 years old, tearfully described the sprinter as someone familiar with guns, prone to fits of anger and an unfaithful boyfriend.
Taylor took to the stand, testifying that in 2010 on the way back from a day trip to a popular city getaway Pistorius was in a car that was pulled over by the police for speeding.
When a police officer inspected Pistorius’s weapon, left on a seat when he exited the car, Pistorius became angry, “Oscar shouted at the policeman and said he shouldn’t touch his gun,” said Taylor.
He later shot at a traffic light, “out of spite after being stopped.”
“He was angry at the police after being stopped, thereafter when they wanted to fire a shot they found it funny,” she said, referring to Pistorius and a friend who was with him at the time.
The firing of the weapon is one of three firearms charges Pistorius faces in addition to a charge of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Frequently breaking down in tears Taylor recounted the history of the pair’s troubled relationship.
Taylor said they met at a rugby match and later “he added me on Facebook.”
Their relationship ended in 2011, Taylor claimed, because “he cheated on me with Reeva Steenkamp.”
Taylor also dismissed the defence’s assertion that witnesses heard Pistorius and not Steenkamp scream on that February 14.
“That is not true, he sounds like a man” when he screams, she said.
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