Trial Discussion Thread #47 - 14.07.8, Day 38

Judgejudi said:

I couldn't find the rates for South African experts but I can show you where I got my figure from (NSW, Australia). Fees for attending in court to give expert testimony have nothing to do with what is charged to a client prior to trial.
Please see paragraph (b) at the foot of column 2 of the attached link. You'll note that my figure was in fact higher than that shown and that was because these rates were applicable in 2011.

http://www.nswbar.asn.au/circulars/2011/jul/witnesses.pdf

I certainly don't need to be informed of what an expert witness is or what's been happening in this trial.

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CRIMINAL LAW

Assessment & Report (inc. Gaol visit) Psychiatrist
Where more than two gaol visits required (additional 2 hours)

Up to $1,141
Up to $1,509

Specialist psychiatric/expert from interstate/overseas, having satisfied ALL general criteria (1-9)

Up to $2,895

Psychologist

Up to $944

Treating Specialist's report
(eg Orthopaedic Surgeon, Forensic Immunologist, Psychiatrist, Obstetrics, Surgeon, etc)

Up to $944

Treating General Practitioner's Report

Up to $444

Attendance at Court to give evidence - hourly rate

$187

Attendance at Court to give evidence * - full day

$944

Specialists Safety Experts- Interview & Report & Technical Investigators- Handwriting experts, I/T forensic analysis

Up to $1,509

Other Investigators, Process Servers etc – hourly rate

http://www.lsc.sa.gov.au/cb_pages/fees_and_dfew.php

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RainCheck said:

This is my first time commenting on this trial and I haven't followed it as closely as most here, but I have followed as much as I can through the news and I watched the Sunday Night Special.

When I first heard about Reeva's death I felt there was no way OP could have shot her on accident because he thought robbers were in the bathroom. I thought it had to be murder and I related Reeva's experience to my own and felt I could have been her. I was modeling and became involved with an actor, he was handsome and charming and well liked. He lavished me with attention and always wanted to know what I was doing. He would show up at my jobs unannounced with a gift. He called me several times a day. I was so flattered and loved how into me he seemed to be. I missed all the warning signs. I knew very early he had a bad temper. He was mean to service people like waitresses or grocery cashiers. He got into physical fights with people over what I saw as trivial slights. A few months into our relationship I printed off information about anger issues and programs he could attend. I wrote him a letter saying I felt he would be happier if he could learn how to live without such anger. I was such a naive little girl because it never crossed my mind he would ever turn that anger to me. Of course he did and it was horrific! I had knives held to my throat. He beat me until I was black and blue, but only in places that could be covered with clothing. He abused my pets and scared away all my friends. He completely broke me and isolated me from my family and anyone who cared about me. I was a shell of a human. He told my what I could eat and wear, even what temperature of water I could drink. I wasn't allowed to be in the sun so as not to age my skin. He was really scary! When I finally worked up the nerve to leave him he caught me trying to gather my things and went ballistic. He twisted my arm behind my back so hard he dislocated it and tore my rotator cuff. Then he used the scarf I was wearing to strangle me until I lost consciousness. He had warned me if I ever tried to leave he would kill me. Luckily his roommate came home and interrupted and called the police. He was arrested but both myself and his roommate were to scared to testify against him so he ended up only having to complete an anger management program and they put a permanent restraining order in place. I went into hiding and after a few years I heard he stopped looking for me. I only recently stopped having nightmares about him. He's still acting and in movies you would have seen. He's also still abusing women. I got a phone call from the DA where he lives and they said he had been arrested for beaten up the mother of his infant child. They wanted me to testify at his new trial. I really know I could have been killed him.

However, my own experience also makes me feel conflicted about OP guilt. My abuser groomed me for well over a year before he ever really hurt me. He tried so hard to be another person for that year. He was my dream man, other than his temper I saw him use on other people. He was so charming and romantic while subtly breaking me down and making me dependent on him emotionally and financially. He manipulated me into thinking all my friends were bad for me and even my family. He worked long and hard to hide the monster he really was until he was sure he had me exactly where he wanted me. Reeva and OP were only together 3 months, right? It seems like OP would have still been in the honeymoon phase and working on Reeva. I can see him making belittling remarks to her and then being really apologetic, but he wouldn't have gone full force abuser yet. It seems so extreme for so early in their relationship for him to become enraged enough to kill her. It's the only thing that makes me confused! I think from what I've read about her talking badly to her, he fits the profile of an abuser. It was just so early in their relationship for him to unleash such violence. It doesn't mean he didn't, but it doesn't fit the pattern I've since researched and read about following my experience. I didn't ever want to make the mistake of getting involved with another abuser again so have spent a lot of time since trying to recognize them.

The other information I read which gave me pause had nothing to do with OP. I started to read about the rampant crime and violence in South Africa. I can't imagine how that would affect the people living there. In the process of reading about it I found the story of Rudi Visagie, the former rugby player who accidentally shot to death his daughter when he thought she was a car thief http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/25/southafrica.rugbyunion How bad is crime in South Africa a man could do that on accident to his own child? Is it bad enough a man could really assume a noise in his bathroom was an armed criminal come to rob and maybe even kill him?

I'm very conflicted with this case. On one hand, I think OP is a controlling man with anger issues who is capable of domestic violence. On the other hand, I think crime is so rampant there he really could have thought Reeva was a robber! I haven't read or heard or seen anything in the evidence that's a "smoking gun" sort of detail for me. I'm very interested to see the outcome of the trial because I think it could easily go either way!

Anyway, sorry if I made no sense or sound ignorant because I don't know enough of the facts! I just wanted to share the thoughts I've had. Thanks!

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Val1 said:

Whatever happened to OP's night with "the boys" and the movie that RS was supposedly invited to stay over for(with one of the "boys" gf's)? Wasn't that supposed to happen that night, or do I have the dates mixed up? I think I'd originally been thinking that that was the origin of where the media had come up with RS perhaps having snuck in to surprise OP for Valentine's... and then shot for being an intruder.

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MURDERER_SERVANT said:

Right. I found the post abt the shop assistant who wrapped her VD gift..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ntines-1740299 (now seems deleted)

QUOTE

Tragic Reeva Steenkamp made a framed four-photo collage showing herself and lover Oscar Pistorius just 12 hours before he killed her, it was revealed yesterday.

A Party Box shop assistant who says she wrapped the gift told how Reeva, 29, acted “like any girl in love” on her visit the day before.

The woman who asked not to be named, said: “She was very friendly. We joked about a girl having to buy her boyfriend something if she wants something in return on Valentine’s Day.”


QUOTE

The day before Valentine’s Day Cecil helped Reeva choose photos she wanted to have framed to give to Oscar as a Valentine’s Day present.

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foxbluff said:

Pretty transparent, is it not!?

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AJ_DS said:

Found the article that mentions OP taking measures so as not to be disturbed at night

"Pistorius’s mind and body do not easily come to rest. For a time, he took the TV out of his bedroom so he would not stay up into the early morning watching movies. He programmed his phone so he couldn’t send texts late at night. But he found that he just read into the wee hours. “I’m in bed at like 8 p.m., and I don’t get out of bed till about 7 a.m.,” he said. “But I only sleep for like half of it.”"]Pistorius’s mind and body do not easily come to rest. For a time, he took the TV out of his bedroom so he would not stay up into the early morning watching movies. He programmed his phone so he couldn’t send texts late at night. But he found that he just read into the wee hours. “I’m in bed at like 8 p.m., and I don’t get out of bed till about 7 a.m.,” he said. “But I only sleep for like half of it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/oscar-pistorius.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

At the time of that interview OP was using a Blackberry phone… he switched to an iPhone later on.

I suspect OP was using a DND app (Do Not Disturb app) on his iPhone

This would explain why there were no GPRS internet connections or any other activity on his personal phone between 11PM and 3:20AM… except for 2 :

- the first at 1:48AM, between the estimate time of RS last meal around 1:15AM and EVDM hearing female arguing loudly at 1:56AM

- the second at 3:18AM, seconds before OP called Johan Stander

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G.bng said:

And Reeva was due to give her first public speech the next morning... I have at times pondered if that wasn't the one sided "argument" EVDM heard, i.e. if she couldn't sleep and went downstairs to practice her speech felt peckish and took a snack to boot. And I was surprised how early SAs seems to go to bed... 9 to 11. In Spain we don't eat until 10, and not even the elderly are in bed much before 11 or 12, or in the summer 1 to 2!

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Viper said:

You were the first as far as I have ever seen to pick up on this, so cheers! I'm not sure why Nel did not just explain this to the court and everyone else during testimony about the phone.

But I researched the DND application on my iPhone and found that it can be configured to keep out email, text, and phone "notifications," but the phone is still free to receive calls and texts from people that may need you in an emergency. So the GPRS is still active in DND mode; I assume, just from reading about how it works.

What OP did IMO was he simply went to settings and switched on the airplane mode, that locks out all potential connections and kills his ability to use the telephone, text, and Safari. When he woke or turned off airplane mode at ~1:48 the phone reconnected to GPRS and received the data, texts, and telephone calls that were waiting to be received.

So Airplane mode not Do Not Disturb mode. The DND mode is more complicated to configure anyway and OP is not the brightest bulb in the box. Check it out and let me know if you agree.

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MURDERER_SERVANT said:

Right. I found the post abt the shop assistant who wrapped her VD gift..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ntines-1740299 (now seems deleted)

QUOTE

Tragic Reeva Steenkamp made a framed four-photo collage showing herself and lover Oscar Pistorius just 12 hours before he killed her, it was revealed yesterday.

A Party Box shop assistant who says she wrapped the gift told how Reeva, 29, acted “like any girl in love” on her visit the day before.

The woman who asked not to be named, said: “She was very friendly. We joked about a girl having to buy her boyfriend something if she wants something in return on Valentine’s Day.”


QUOTE

The day before Valentine’s Day Cecil helped Reeva choose photos she wanted to have framed to give to Oscar as a Valentine’s Day present.

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AJ_DS said:

Found the article that mentions OP taking measures so as not to be disturbed at night

"Pistorius’s mind and body do not easily come to rest. For a time, he took the TV out of his bedroom so he would not stay up into the early morning watching movies. He programmed his phone so he couldn’t send texts late at night. But he found that he just read into the wee hours. “I’m in bed at like 8 p.m., and I don’t get out of bed till about 7 a.m.,” he said. “But I only sleep for like half of it.”"]Pistorius’s mind and body do not easily come to rest. For a time, he took the TV out of his bedroom so he would not stay up into the early morning watching movies. He programmed his phone so he couldn’t send texts late at night. But he found that he just read into the wee hours. “I’m in bed at like 8 p.m., and I don’t get out of bed till about 7 a.m.,” he said. “But I only sleep for like half of it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/oscar-pistorius.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

At the time of that interview OP was using a Blackberry phone… he switched to an iPhone later on.

I suspect OP was using a DND app (Do Not Disturb app) on his iPhone

This would explain why there were no GPRS internet connections or any other activity on his personal phone between 11PM and 3:20AM… except for 2 :

- the first at 1:48AM, between the estimate time of RS last meal around 1:15AM and EVDM hearing female arguing loudly at 1:56AM

- the second at 3:18AM, seconds before OP called Johan Stander

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AJ_DS said:

There are many DND apps out there… I've read up on it and found many that can be easily configured to do the following :

- Preset start and end time of DND e.g. from 11PM to 5AM DND mode automatically turns ON

- Stops all incoming 'stuff' i.e. incoming phone calls, SMS, emails, 'everything' including automatic updates… phone is basically in airplane mode for all intents and purposes

- If user touches the phone during preset DND schedule i.e. makes the phone get out of sleep mode… this indicates that the user wishes to use the phone, DND mode automatically turns OFF

- If the phone goes back into sleep mode during preset DND schedule i.e. user is no longer using the phone… DND mode automatically turns ON

- Many additional features e.g. block everything incoming except from girlfriend and/or best friend and/or mom and/or security

Sam Taylor stated that OP always took his personal phone with him wherever he went, even to the bathroom.
Sam Taylor stated that OP always charged his personal phone in the bedroom
We all saw the tell-tale white Apple charging cable dangling from the amplifier in OP's bedroom

When OP got up to investigate the noise RS had made downstairs in the kitchen, he unplugged his phone and took it with him… this made the DND app believe OP wanted to use the phone so it automatically turned OFF the DND mode.

This was at 01:48:48… since the phone had not received anything incoming for the past 3 hours because DND was active, the server dumped everything it had in its queue for OP's personal phone at that time… this explains why the GPRS connection lasted so long : 5 minutes 9 seconds… there was a lot of things to transfer.

OP did not use the phone at that time… that's why no calls were logged and nothing appeared in application data as being sent by OP.

OP just put his phone in his pocket… after a few minutes of inactivity by the user, the phone went back into sleep mode and the DND automatically turned back ON again.

…. arguing with RS between 2AM and 3AM…. OP shoots RS

Now OP wants/needs to call someone… so he reaches in his pocket to grab his phone and starts looking in his contacts for Johan Stander's number...the DND app saw OP wanted to use the phone so it automatically turned OFF the DND mode.

This was at 03:18:45...the phone had not received anything incoming for the past hour… again the server dumped everything it had on his phone… since there wasn't as much the GPRS only lasted for 1 minute 15 seconds.

OP found Johan Stander's number, he dialed it and the call began at 03:19:03… this means it took approximately 18 seconds for OP to get his phone out of sleep mode, access contacts, find Johan Stander's number plus the phone to dial the number and connect the call.

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james83 said:

It's always been something i have found very very odd, he meets this beautiful girl, apparently falls madly in love with her, she's the one the love of his life etc, they are looking at house's together.
Now you would think given all that, he would really go to town for valentine's day, especially given the fact that he's a very wealthy man, but yet it's clear that he had done nothing, not even a card.

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Viper said:

You may not have taken my post seriously. Please step away from what you wrote above about sleep mode and unplugging an iPhone, I think you may be wrong about those things as it applies to your interpretation of the phone connecting at ~1:48.

I'm using my iPhone to post this reply. It has a DND setting of On or Off in settings, and yes it can be configured to what I want, but.. When I turn DND on my cell tower connection is not disrupted at all, but when I turn Airplane mode on the bars and the GPRS connection disappear. I've tested both modes, trying to make a phone call and trying to use Safari, and in Do Not Disturb mode the telephone and Safari still work, but in Airplane mode they are completely shut down. So it is more likely that OP activated Airplane mode at 10:00 and turned it off at 1:48 when the data, likely emails or WhatsApp texts, streamed to his phone.

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AJ_DS said:

Eureka !!

I believe I may have found where Reeva was at 12:12:05 before going to OP's house

The place is called "Karoo Lifestyle"… it has many shops… one of which is called "Loads of Ideas" and sells frames for pictures

It is located in range of the Cabana Glen cell tower which is the tower from where RS sent the 12:12:05 Whatsapp message to OP saying she was returning to his house.

The store is located approximately 8 km for OP's house, or about 12 minutes by car.

http://www.karoolifestyle.co.za/p/445937/loads-of-ideas

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AJ_DS said:

Apologies… did not mean to suggest in any way that I was not taking your post seriously.

I get your point totally

But consider this :

- There exists DND apps that put the phone into a pseudo 'airplane mode'… these are far more convenient than manually switching airplane mode ON/OFF… if you have an emergency, it is very inconvenient to have to deactivate airplane mode before being able to use your phone.

- Furthermore, these DND apps can be configured to one's personal preferences… Airplane mode cannot.

- The fact to no GPRS connections occurred between 01:48:48 and 03:18:45, 18 seconds before OP talked to Johan Stander is an indication that phone was in DND/Airplane mode.

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