Pistorius sick at sight of slain girlfriend

Oscar Pistorius sits in the dock with his head bowed in court in Pretoria. Photo / AP

It flashed up for less than a tenth of a second, but the damage was done and the reaction instant.

As the South African state prosecutor asked for picture 162 to be displayed on the evidence screens, the computer had to zip through more than 100 images of the scene at Oscar Pistorius' house on Valentine's Day to get there.

One of the screens is just about a metre in front of the face of the athlete in the witness box, and as a picture flashed of Reeva Steenkamp's face in close up after death, the accused was instantly and loudly sick on the floor.

A green bucket was hurriedly fetched, but it was too late. Later, Pistorius' screen was turned off.

On day nine of the Olympian's trial for the murder of his girlfriend, Colonel Giliam Schoombie van Rensburg, the first police officer to arrive at the apartment, guided the court through a long series of images of the scene at the athlete's house.

"I approached the house, there were security officers also there. After I'd gone through, on the left-hand side of the stairs there was a body.

"The body was covered with towels and black bags and there was blood which could be seen there."

The colonel said a female paramedic told him the woman had been declared dead on their arrival.

"The paramedic showed me there was a head wound, a wound on the right hand side of the waist, a wound on the right arm above the elbow," Schoombie van Rensburg said.

"In the kitchen, there stood the accused, a white male who was made known to me as Oscar Pistorius. He was very emotional at that stage and then I asked him what happened. He didn't answer. He was in tears."

The photographs showed spots of blood on the floor and the walls of Pistorius' stairs and hallway. In the bedroom an empty gun holster lay to the left-hand side of the bed, the implication being that this was where Pistorius removed the gun.

He claims he believed Steenkamp to still be sleeping.

Other pictures showed deep pools of blood on the bathroom floor, and large parts of the demolished door.

The police colonel found the gun lying on top of a grey towel. "The hammer was back," he said. "It was cocked and ready to go."

Prosecutors argue Pistorius, 27, intentionally shot and killed his girlfriend after a domestic dispute. If convicted of murder he will almost certainly receive a life sentence, with a minimum term of 25 years.

- Independent