Pistorius Trial - Family denies that Pistorius took "acting lessons" to prepare for the trail accusation - pics, video

Oscar Pistorius consults his defence attorney Barry Roux at the High Court in Pretoria.Picture / AP

The Pistorius family has denied in the "strongest terms" the athlete took acting classes in preparation for his murder trial, following accusations that he was "coached" by a professional actor.

In an open letter, British-born columnist Jani Allan accused him of faking his courtroom tantrums and described the athlete, who is accused of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day last year, as a "faux hero".

"I have it from a reliable source that you are taking acting lessons for your days in court," Ms Allan wrote. "Your coach has an impossible task."

She continued: "Oscar, I look at you mewling and puking in the witness stand. You truly represent everything the West loathes about white South Africans who live extravagant lives."

Anneliese Burgess, a spokesperson for the Pistorius family, dismissed Ms Allan's letter as a "mockery of the enormous human tragedy involving the Steenkamp family and our client and his family".

She added: "We deny in the strongest terms the contents of her letter in as far it relates to our client and further deny that our client has undergone any acting lessons or any form of emotional coaching."

Ms Burgess said Ms Allan, who claims to have sources close to the athlete, has never met Pistorius and described any knowledge she professes to have of him as "fictitious".

Pistorius' court appearances have been marked by dramatic shows of emotion, often breaking down in loud sobs and even vomiting at the sight of graphic evidence.

Watch: Pistorius cries during final cross-examination

Video

In cross-examination, state prosecutor Gerrie Nel accused a seemingly grief-stricken Pistorius of shedding tears of self-pity to avoid answering difficult questions about night he shot and killed his girlfriend through a locked toilet door.

Pistorius's loud sobbing and wailing have prompted Judge Thokozile Masipa to temporarily adjourn court in multiple occasions so he could "compose himself" before continuing giving evidence.

Pistorius is accused of murdering Ms Steenkamp following a domestic dispute in the early hours of Valentine's Day last year. He claims he shot and killed his girlfriend in a case of mistaken identity, thinking she was an intruder.

The trial has now adjourned for a break and will reconvene on Monday 5 May.

Oscar Pistorius damaged but not destroyed

The past five days of the trial have done Oscar Pistorius few favours

Pistorius trial

• As it happened
• Week five round-up
• Pistorius 'close to disaster'
• 'Bull terrier' bites

It has been exhausting just to watch Oscar Pistorius - doubled up on the ropes for hour after hour, heavy arms trying to fend off another clinical combination of lethal jabs and low blows from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

As the athlete finally slinks wearily back across the court from the witness stand to the dock, he must know that the last five days have done him few favours in this trial.

He has been forgetful, evasive, agitated, uncertain, argumentative, and defiantly - some would say deliberately - ambiguous about some of the key issues at the heart of this murder trial. However well his forensic experts proceed to shore up his testimony in the coming days, his credibility has been damaged.

'Buckets of uncertainty'

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel has depicted Oscar Pistorius as a man with a disdainful attitude to authority

Inevitably, many people watching the proceedings are resolutely preoccupied with the facts - and the extent to which Mr Nel has cast doubt - or worse - on Mr Pistorius' explanation of his behaviour the night he killed Reeva Steenkamp.

It is understandable. Facts matter. I have been fending off emails from members of the public anxious to unearth some "smoking gun" detail that can resolve this case once and for all.

A man from the US seemed sure that all would be revealed if only it could be established that Mr Pistorius' alarm panel was stained with blood. A woman sought to assure me women "do not" take their mobile phones to the toilet.

But the reality, from my vantage point in the public gallery here, is that there is no "smoking gun" - besides the obviously literal one.

The truth is something only Mr Pistorius knows, and Mr Nel - for all his flamboyant scepticism, disorientation skills, and razor-edged logic - has succeeded only in muddying the waters.

The trial has many elements which have captivated the public including a celebrity killer and a beautiful victim

Yes, he has cast buckets of rank uncertainty on the athlete's slumped shoulders. But he has not yet proved beyond all doubt, to my mind, that Mr Pistorius' version "cannot be" - to borrow one of the favourite put-downs of defence lawyer Barry Roux.

Instead, what we are left with is something much more mercurial - and much more compelling.

There are plenty of reasons why this trial has fascinated so many members of the public. A celebrity killer. A beautiful victim. A country often preoccupied by violence. But I suspect that at least part of the fascination is the enduring mystery that lurks at the heart of this trial… and the simple, but perhaps unknowable, question: "What was Mr Pistorius thinking when he pulled that trigger?"

In court, under Mr Nel's ruthless gaze, the Olympic sprinter has tried out half a dozen different versions of an answer - from an accident, to a blameless and unthinking instinct, to a deliberate but non-lethal tactic, to a chance combination of an uncertain aim and a nervous trigger-finger.

Those lawyerly, guilt-evading answers do not seem to have impressed many people.

Seed of doubt?

As I outlined in an earlier blog, Mr Pistorius has some reason to embrace ambiguity. He knows that he could be cleared of deliberately killing Reeva Steenkamp, but still be found guilty of intentionally murdering "someone" behind a closed door.

The other issue that has preoccupied me as I have watched Mr Pistorius in the witness box is the timeline of his "mistake." It is a word that he and his family constantly use. But I'm not talking about the few seconds prior to the shooting; rather the months and years before hand.

Mr Nel has built up a powerful portrait of a man with a disdainful attitude to authority, an occasionally aggressive attitude to women, and an extraordinarily entitled and reckless attitude to the pistol he carried with him absolutely everywhere, often cocked.

As Mr Pistorius reflects on the last few days, traumatised as he clearly already is, will he - as he appeared to do in the dying moments of his cross-examination when he resolutely refused to accept "blame" for Ms Steenkamp's death - stick to his belief in his own, ultimate innocence on all these charges? Or has a seed of doubt been sown about the life and the assumptions that led him to this place?

To borrow from a great Russian novel: "If he has a conscience, he will suffer for his mistake."

Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp phone call records revealed "I'm scared of you sometimes"

Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp call records revealed

LIVE: Coverage of murder trial of Oscar Pistorius. May include graphic evidence

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Pistorius trial

• Inequality on show
• Week three round-up
• Beware of certainties
• Key players

Oscar Pistorius and his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp made five phone calls to each other just hours before he shot her, his murder trial has heard.

A police captain has given evidence about the couple's mobile phones.

On Monday, Capt Francois Moller revealed that Ms Steenkamp had sent Mr Pistorius a text message saying: "I'm scared of you sometimes."

The athlete denies deliberately killing his girlfriend in February last year, saying he thought she was an intruder.

The trial has now entered is fourth week, with the prosecution expected to wrap up its case before Friday.

The BBC's Andrew Harding, at the murder trial in Pretoria, said Capt Moller slowly guided the court through the duration of each call made from Ms Steenkamp's phone to Mr Pistorius.

The analysis appeared to show that her phone was not in use around the time of her death.

Mr Pistorius previously said he had forgotten the password to his iPhone and investigators went to the US shortly before the trial began to meet Apple officials to try and gain access to it.

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Tea break. After that Roux will take us through the couple's "shared love for cars". #Pistorius
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We adjourn for tea.
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Roux has Reeva's internet record+emails regarding fast cars. And says in a soft gentle voice 'My Lady would this be an opportune time then?'
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Roux using "loving" messages to show the two may have fought but had a healthy relationship. Will it be enough through? #Pistorius
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court adjourns. #OscarPistorius
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'Jealous and possessive'

On Monday Capt Moller told the court in Pretoria he had been able to extract some 35,000 pages' worth of messages from Ms Steenkamp's phone.

He said that 90% of the messages between the couple were loving, but he had picked out exceptions.

In one message sent on 27 January 2013, Ms Steenkamp wrote: "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and of how you react to me."

Reeva Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp, has been in court to hear the prosecution's evidence

There is intense media interest in the case due to Mr Pistorius' status as a sporting hero in South Africa

The message was sent after the couple had a row when he accused her of flirting with another man at a friend's engagement dinner - weeks before he shot her dead.

In another message written a week before her death, she said: "I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be attacked by you - the one person I deserve protection from."

Our correspondent says some of the messages read in court could be extremely damaging for Mr Pistorius, who has spoken of the couple being in a loving relationship.

Ms Steenkamp's messages paint a picture of the athlete as a jealous and possessive boyfriend prone to anger, our correspondent adds.

The texts between the couple also suggest Mr Pistorius asked Ms Steenkamp to keep quiet over an incident in January 2013 where he allegedly fired a gun at a restaurant - another charge he denies.

"Angel please don't say a thing to any one... I can't afford for that to come out," he wrote.

'A woman screaming'

Earlier, one of Mr Pistorius' neighbours said she had heard both a man and woman scream on Valentine's Day 2013.

Anette Stipp, whose husband gave evidence earlier in the trial, said she heard the screams and gunshots at around 0300 local time on the day of the shooting.

She said she heard two groups of gunshots with a woman screaming in between.

Oscar Pistorius murder trial mobile phone messages

• "I was not flirting with anyone today I feel sick that you suggested that" (Reeva Steenkamp, 27 January 2013)
• "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you will react to me" (Reeva Steenkamp, 27 January)
• "I do everything to make you happy and to not say anything to rock the boat with you" (Reeva Steenkamp, 27 January)
• "I cant be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be attacked by you - the one person I deserve protection from" (Reeva Steenkamp, 8 February)
• The court heard the couple called each other "Angel" and "Baba"
• "Angel please don't say a thing to anyone…Darren told everyone it was his fault. I can't afford for that to come out" (Oscar Pistorius, 11 January 2013 following alleged shooting incident)

Her testimony has closely matched that of other neighbours and witnesses, including her husband.

The defence has previously claimed that Mr Pistorius screams like a woman and that neighbours had confused his screams with those of Ms Steenkamp.

"It was a definitely a woman screaming," said Mrs Stipp.

Oscar Pistorius trial day 14: Key moments

She also said that the light was on in the bathroom cubicle, where Ms Steenkamp was when she was shot.

This contradicts evidence given by Mr Pistorius, who said that it was "pitch dark" where the shooting took place.

Trial extended

On Sunday the trial was extended and will now run until the middle of May. It had been due to end this week.

The prosecution says it will call upon four more witnesses before closing its case.

A long message from Reeva Steenkamp to Oscar Pistorius was read out in court

The defence team, led by Barry Roux, will then call upon its own witnesses, including Mr Pistorius himself.

Last week the trial heard evidence from ballistics experts and computer forensic teams who described the sequence and timing of the shots that killed Ms Steenkamp.

Mr Pistorius is a double amputee who holds six Paralympic medals and competed in the 2012 Olympic Games.

The prosecution accuses him of intentionally shooting Ms Steenkamp - a model, reality TV celebrity and law graduate - after an argument.

But the athlete maintains he believed his girlfriend was in bed and that an intruder had entered the bathroom when he shot at the toilet door in the early hours of 14 February 2013.

There are no juries at trials in South Africa, and his fate will ultimately be decided by the judge, assisted by two assessors.

If found guilty, the 27-year-old - dubbed the "blade runner" because of the prosthetic limbs he wore to race - could face life imprisonment.