
“I hope you understand that we simply can’t be having this conversation in the media. Any engagement with the Steenkamp family has to be handled with the necessary care and respect, away from the media spotlight,” Annelise Burgess said yesterday.
She had been asked to respond to a report that Reeva Steenkamp’s father, Barry, would want to meet with Oscar one day.
“I think I’ll get more closure one day if I get the chance to speak to Oscar myself,” Barry Steenkamp told Carte Blanche on Sunday.
“Most probably I wouldn’t have to say anything. I’ll just have to look at him… but that’s what I would like to do one day,” Barry added.
Steenkamp’s mother, June, on Wednesday, October 21 told an assembly at her daughter’s alma mater that she did not want to see Oscar Pistorius suffer in jail.
June Steenkamp said she never wanted Pistorius to be thrown in jail or to be suffering.
“I don’t wish suffering on anyone, and that isn’t going to bring Reeva back… I don’t want revenge. I’m past that and once you have told God you’re going to forgive, you’ve to forgive. I don’t want him to suffer… I would certainly not want to hurt another human being,” she said.
News24 reported that Pistorius will serve the rest of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide under house arrest. During his six-month trial, he said he shot Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, with a pistol he kept under his bed because he mistook her for an intruder.
Pistorius’s parole conditions have not been publicly revealed, but they are reported to compel him to meet with Steenkamp’s parents if they wish.