Oscar Pistorius, the South African Paralympic sprinter known as the Blade Runner, shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door at his Pretoria home, insisting he believed an intruder was inside. A court accepted the defence and convicted him only of culpable homicide, the South African equivalent of manslaughter.
On 21 October 2014 he was sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment, and was released on parole for good behaviour within a year. In December 2015 an appeals court overturned the lesser verdict entirely, finding that Pistorius had in fact committed murder, and sent the case back for a harsher sentence.
