Pistorius ‘asked friend to take blame for shooting’

The Olympian athlete accidentally shot a gun at an expensive restaurant in Johannesburg in 2013, weeks before he killed his girlfriend.

Kevin Lerena told the court that Pistorius had apologised to fellow diners after a shot went off, and then asked his friend to take the blame.

“Before anybody came to the table, I do remember Oscar saying to Darren (Fresco), ‘Please, say it was you. I don’t want any tension around me, just say it was you’,” Mr Lerena told the court (see video above). “And Darren Fresco, when the restaurant manager came up, Darren took the blame.”

He added: “You can’t quote me word for word, but along those lines.”

The incident took place after Mr Fresco passed a gun to Pistorius under the table at the upmarket restaurant in a shopping mall. The court heard that Mr Fresco had warned Pistorius that he was “one up” and that the gun had a bullet in the chamber. But the gun went off soon after, leaving a hole in the ground, with the debris slightly grazing Mr Lerena’s toe.

Please, say it was you. I don’t want any tension around me, just say it was you Kevin Lerena recounting Pistorius

The witness was called by the prosecution on day three of the much-hyped murder trial, where the Olympian athlete is accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year. Pistorius, 27, denies murder and says he shot her through the closed bathroom door at his home because he thought she was an intruder.

Mr Lerena’s evidence is in connection to a lesser charge the prosecution brought against Pistorius, of discharging a weapon in a public place. A professional boxer, known as “KO Kid”, Mr Lerena told the court that Pistorius was an “icon” and had been helping him with his training regime.

The Olympian athlete has pleaded not guilty to the offence related to the incident at Tasha’s restaurant, and to a similar charge of shooting a bullet through the sun roof of an ex-girlfriend’s car.

The trial is the first in South Africa to be televised live, but witnesses can opt to have their faces hidden and Mr Lerena was the first witness to agree to being broadcast.

The fate of the world famous Olympian athlete rests in the hands of one woman: judge Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa, as South Africa abolished jury trials in the 1960s.

Day three of the Pistorius murder trial – watch live on Channel 4 News

Earlier on Wednesday, another witness, Charl Johnson, told the court that he had received phonecalls and a threat via text message after his phone number was read out in court the previous day.

The chief defence lawyer in the trial tried to undermine the testimony of Mr Johnson and his wife Michelle Burger, Pistorius’s neighbours, who both said they woke to a woman screaming, followed by gunfire, on the night that Steenkamp was killed.

Barry Roux suggested that their accounts to court were so similar as to be suspicious, and said that what they thought was gunshots, could in fact have been Pistorius hitting the bathroom door with a cricket bat.

“There is only one thing you could have heard, because it coincides precisely,” Roux said to Johnson. “That was the time that he (Pistorius) broke down the door (with the bat).”

Johnson replied, addressing the judge: “My lady, I am convinced the sound I heard was gunshots.”

‘Reeva’s story will be told‘

Oscar “blade runner” Pistorius and his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp were fast becoming South Africa’s golden couple, and the trial over her murder has, unsurprisingly, attracted worldwide attention. Since the trial began on Monday, the Pretoria courthouse has seen huge numbers of camera crews and journalists outside, snapping the accused and the family of Steenkamp while they’ve been in court.

But day three also saw politicians getting involved: the ANC’s Nomvula Mokonyane, the premier of South Africa’s Gauteng province, turned up at court with a sticker of Steenkamp’s face on her jacket – and with a group of women dressed in green from the ANC’s women’s league, who are trying to use the case to raise awareness about violence against women. They protested outside court at the start of the trial on Monday (see photo above).

Local reporters said she sat next to the Steenkamp family in the public gallery, on the opposite side to the accused, and was seen whispering commiserations to relatives.

And she has been offering her support to witnesses, one of whom said he had been threatened after testifying for the prosecution. “We say bravo to them,” she told ENCA reporters. “At least there is hope in our country that irrespective of someone’s status there can be ordinary unknown individuals who can face the world and say this is what I have heard. Because dead men tell no story, but Reeva’s story will be told.”