I watched Oscar Pistorius vomit into a courtroom bucket as we saw what the Black Talons did to Reeva's body... those almost unspeakable horrors still haunt me

It's the sick bucket that sticks in the mind.

Twelve years after Oscar Pistorius went on trial for the murder of his girlfriend, the image of that lime green plastic container by the bench is etched in the memory. 

When the prosecution gave graphic details of the bullet wounds that killed Reeva Steenkamp, Pistorius would retch into the bucket. When the forensic pathologist described her death, the South African sprinter's spewing would echo throughout the courtroom.

Judge Thokozile Masipa halted testimony at one point to ask chief defense lawyer Barry Roux: 'Is your client fine?'

Roux replied: 'It's not going to be fine.'

South Africans' feelings about that bucket mirrored their sentiments about the trial. Some sympathetic souls saw a pitiful young man ripped apart by the horrors of his mistake – he claimed he shot and killed Steenkamp inside the locked bathroom of his home by accident, believing she was an intruder. Others, however, saw a privileged, calculating and manipulative aggressor playing to the audience, hoping once more that his theatrics would win out.

Pistorius was 26 years old and at the peak of his prowess when he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and paralegal, in the bathroom of his Pretoria residence on Valentine's Day in 2013.

The year before, he had made history as the first disabled athlete to compete against able-bodied competitors at the Olympics, running in the 400m and 4x400m relay at the London games.

Pistorius was born without calf bones, or fibulas, and he had his lower legs amputated when he was 11 months old.

The 'Blade Runner,' as he was fondly known, had won gold medals at the Athens and Beijing games and was a household name worldwide, exemplifying the drive and resilience of disabled athletes and earning, in the process, $2 million a year from sponsors such as Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler.

News of the shooting stunned the world, with its impact felt far beyond the confines of sport.

In South Africa it became – perhaps inevitably – a debate about race and inequality, in what remains one of the most socially and economically riven countries in the world.

Pistorius and Steenkamp were both white, and Judge Masipa was black, as were many of the local investigating officers.

He was born into immense privilege, raised from the age of 15 by his uncle, Arnold, after his mother Sheila died from an adverse reaction to wrongly prescribed medication. Pistorius' parents had divorced when he was six, and the athlete was largely estranged from his own father Henke, the brother of Arnold.

Arnold and his wife Lois raised Oscar along with his brother Carl and sister Aimee in the lap of luxury within the walls of their fortress-like compound in the wealthy Pretoria suburb of Waterkloof. The Pistorius family money comes from Arnold and Henke's own father, who launched a conglomerate with interests in mining, property and tourism stretching from Mozambique to Austria.

That money and privilege shone through the entire trial.

For the initial hearings, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Pistorius family turned up in court looking like South Africa's answer to the Kardashians.

Yet by the time the trial began, in March 2014, they had hired a British PR consultant and former editor of The Sun, Stuart Higgins: the clan from then on dressed with studious sobriety, and repeatedly referenced their faith.

They also hired Barry Roux, considered one of the country's fiercest attorneys and commanding up to $5,000 a day – a fortune in South Africa. Roux successfully shredded some of the bumbling local police, noting how forensic evidence was muddied and Pistorius's $10,000 watch stolen from the supposedly sealed crime scene.

The prosecution, in turn, set out to prove that the wealthy white athlete thought he was above the law, once yelling at a police officer who pulled his friend over for speeding: 'You can't just touch another man's gun.' When they drove off, Pistorius astonished his fellow passengers by firing the gun out the sunroof, then laughing. Another time Pistorius fired his gun by accident inside a restaurant, and asked his friend to take the blame.

They showed footage of Pistorius firing a gun into a watermelon and saying off camera: 'It's a lot softer than brains. But ... it's like a zombie stopper.'

Gerrie Nel, for the prosecution, told the visibly shaken sportsman: 'You know that the same happened to Reeva's head. It exploded. Have a look. I'm going to show you, Mr Pistorius, it had the exact same effect, the bullet that went into her head.'

Those within the Pretoria courtroom then gasped as Nel turned on a series of television screens showing Steenkamp's head on the bathroom floor, with a bloody mass of tissue on the back and her blonde hair drenched with blood.

'That's it. It's time that you look at it,' said Nel. 'Have a look there, I know you don't want to because you don't want to take responsibility.'

A whimpering Pistorius said he did not need to look at the photo because it was seared onto his memory.

Prosecutors also called ballistics experts to testify about the stomach-churning impact of the Black Talon bullets with which Pistorius shot Steenkamp.

'It hits the target, it opens up, it creates six talons, and these talons are sharp,' said Chris Mangena, a police firearms specialist. 'It cuts through the organs of a human being.'

When the forensic pathologist talked through the injuries caused by the Black Talons, Pistorius covered his ears with his hands and leant forwards to be violently sick into the bucket.

Nel's team also shared WhatsApp messages between Steenkamp and Pistorius, in which the model said she was scared at times of Pistorius's jealousy and quick temper.

Less than three weeks before she was killed, Steenkamp wrote: 'You have picked on me excessively … I do everything to make you happy and you do everything to throw tantrums.

'I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and of how you will react to me.'

Then there was the awkward spectacle of Pistorius being made to walk around the courtroom on his stumps, without his prosthetics.

The aim was to prove his version of events: he said he fired through the locked bathroom door on his stumps, then beat the door down with a cricket bat on realizing his error. The prosecution claimed he was more methodical, taking time between firing the shots and picking up the bat to put his prosthetic limbs on.

Pistorius was made to demonstrate wielding the bat against a door, which had been brought in to the courtroom. It was a humiliating, degrading scene for the once-revered sportsman – and it only fed the media frenzy.

Throughout the trial, Pistorius was on bail, living at his uncle's mansion, surrounded by guns and hunting trophies.

Every day he was wrestled into court by officials shoving their way through the gauntlet of camera crews. I stood inside the Pretoria courthouse one morning and photographed him as he strode past, his look of disdain unmissable. Television crews from around the world had set up camp outside the courthouse, and finding space inside the modern wood-paneled room was a scramble.

Many in South Africa were angry that an accused murderer was allowed the luxury of heading home each evening to palatial splendor. Driving to court one morning, I asked my taxi driver, who was black, whether he thought Pistorius was innocent or guilty.

'I'm not sure,' he replied. 'But the one thing I do know is: If it were me who killed someone, I'd be straight to jail.'

The case also brought to the fore questions about crime within the country.

I covered the initial hearings from London, then travelled to South Africa as the case drew to a close, supporting my South Africa correspondent colleague.

Henke Pistorius had set off a firestorm when asked by my colleague Aislinn Laing about reports that their family owned 55 guns, and replying that it was because the government was disinterested in protecting white people.

'Some of the guns are for hunting and some are for protection, the hand guns,' said Henke. 'It speaks to the ANC government - look at white crime levels - why protection is so poor in this country. It's an aspect of our society.'

Arnold Pistorius immediately issued a statement distancing himself from his brother's comments, while a spokesman for the ruling African National Congress, Jackson Mthembu, said the party 'rejects with contempt' Henke's claim.

In his affidavit, Pistorius said he was 'acutely aware' of violent crime in his homeland, and confirmed he had applied for licenses for six more firearms, in addition to the gun with which he killed Steenkamp.

'I have received death threats before. I have also been a victim of violence and of burglaries,' he said. 'For that reason, I kept my firearm, a 9mm Parabellum, underneath my bed when I went to sleep at night.'

I wanted to explain to our international readers why it was not abnormal for someone in South Africa to sleep with a gun under their pillow: many in my own gun-averse homeland of Britain took that as an immediate indication of violent tendencies. 

So I arranged for a private security company working in the Johannesburg area to show me around their headquarters, and take me out on patrol – there were twice as many private security guards as police in the city, they said. It would be unthinkable for wealthy families like the Pistoriuses to live without guns, and without their own battalions of private guards and home help.

But that fact caused, for me, one of the biggest problems in this case.

Oscar had a live-in housekeeper, a Malawian man named Frank Chiziweni, who was actually in the house when Pistorius fired the fatal shots.

The prosecution claimed that Pistorius and Steenkamp had a blazing row, sparked by his jealousy. The defense denied any such argument happened.

Chiziweni, however, told police he 'heard nothing' from his sleeping quarters next to the kitchen. He did not appear at trial, and was believed to be still on the Pistorius family payroll.

On September 11, 2014, Judge Masipa announced her verdict: Pistorius was not guilty of murder but was convicted of culpable homicide, and sentenced to five years.

Much legal wrangling then ensued, with the Pistorius family fortune harnessed once more to try and free the fallen star.

He was initially released on parole in October 2015, but the following month the Supreme Court overturned that decision and instead convicted him of murder, for which he was ultimately sentenced to 15 years.

In January 2024, he was released on parole, and returned to live with his uncle, Arnold.

By December that year, he was reported to be in a relationship with a Steenkamp look-a-like, Rita Greyling, a business consultant and family friend.

Steenkamp's father Barry had died in September 2023 age 80, but her mother June, who founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation Against The Abuse of Women and Children, believes to this day that Pistorius shot and killed her daughter in a fit of rage.

Asked about Pistorius's new girlfriend, June said at the time that he is 'still a danger to women.'

'Reeva only knew him for three months and she was dead, and he's never confessed,' she said. 'It's not painful for me that he's with this young woman - I'm just worried about her.'

Pistorius himself has never given an interview: his parole conditions forbid it.

But there is talk of a Netflix-style documentary in the works.

If they need an image to sum up the trial, they could do worse than look to the courtroom at the end of that day in 2014, when he was first sentenced.

There was a bunch of white roses on the bench where Pistorius sat.

And beside it, that lime green sick bucket.