The trial of Paralympian sprinter Oscar Pistorius has come to an end with his sentencing this week, leaving people with mixed emotions about the judge's decision.
The trial of Paralympian sprinter Oscar Pistorius has come to an end with his sentencing this week, leaving people with mixed emotions about the judge's decision.
Pistorius was sentenced to five years imprisonment on culpable homicide charges and three-year suspended sentence for discharging a firearm in a restaurant.
Some people may argue that Pistorius got off with a slap on the wrist for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
It appears that the general feeling from ordinary people out there, at least in Grahamstown, is that Pistorius got away with murder.
However, the people at the heart of the trial, the Steenkamp family has said they accept the sentence imposed by Judge Thokozile Masipa.
There are so many aspects that one has to take into consideration when looking at this case, one should not be quick to criticise Masipa for both her judgement and the sentence she imposed.
People on social media have criticised Masipa rather harshly for not finding Pistorius guilty of murder dolus eventualis.
This means the judge did not believe that Pistorius could foresee the consequences of his illegal actions and chose to ignore them.
As a result, Masipa has had to impose a lighter sentence on the culpable homicide charge.
However, many of the critics do not focus much on the role played by the state in trying to prove a charge of murder.
This cannot be fair to the judge as she relies on the state to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Pistorius intended to kill whoever was behind that toilet door on Valentine's Day last year.
Pistorius will be eligible to apply for parole in 10 months time, which means he might serve under a year of his five-year jail term in prison.
My opinion is that some prison time is better than no prison time at all, and I'm sure Reeva's family can take some sort of comfort from that even though it's a small price for taking a person's life.
