Oscar Pistorius – The truth about those lies

If you were totally honest with yourself, you will admit that you don’t remember if you switched a house alarm on or off months ago, at a particular moment, day or time. You will not be able to remember the policeman’s name you spoke to on a telephone regarding a complaint. You will not be able to remember something insignificant like if your alarm was tested or not: “So what your evidence is: in 2010 they took all the sensors off the walls... Being security conscious, you checked the alarm afterwards... And in 2013, you did not know of any malfunction on the alarm?” Nel said. Sometimes, when life is a crazy maelstrom of events, insane moments, obligations, responsibilities, needs and interest combined, all just end up in your mind a one major blur.

Do you really think it’s impossible that Oscar could forget some details? I know for sure I would and I only need to keep my family and my boss happy. Oscar had to keep the Judge, Prosecutor, Police, NCA, the Steenkamps, the ANCWL, the Media and the rest of the world happy…that’s what I call immense pressure.

Much of the case against Oscar Pistorius was founded upon the principle that his popular public image masked a sinister alter ego; that of a volatile, controlling, lying, cheating, narcissistic abuser. Yet, this revelation was not based upon impartial and corroborated evidence, but upon a deliberate and sustained attempts by the State Prosecutor, the NPA and the Media over time to destroy his reputation and vilify his character. They successfully tailored the image to suit their needs and boost their egos, they did everything to make sure that he went from Hero to Zero in less than 10 seconds.

During the entire trial State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel freely capitalised on the engineered portrayal of Oscar as an entitled, self-absorbed, lying, narcissist:

- “you do not want to take responsibility”

- “Ja, or that it is all about you”

- “take responsibility for what you have done Mr. Pistorius”

- “you see; the issue is: It is all about you”

- “you just refuse to take responsibility for anything”

- “she was right. It is all about you”

- “Oscar Pistorius will not take responsibility”

- “So on what basis are you saying that he is lying?”

State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel vehemently denied ever calling murder-accused Oscar Pistorius a liar while he cross-examined the athlete in the North Gauteng High Court.

"I never called him a liar, I said he was lying," said Nel in his closing arguments.

The defence's arguments state that Pistorius was compromised as a witness and was called a liar by the State on numerous occasions. Explaining what happened, Nel said he went back into all the trial records and said it happened once. He said he was reprimanded by the court but never called Pistorius a liar and just said he was lying. Nel argued that the defence's admission that Pistorius was compromised in the witness box showed he was not a good witness.

I state unequivocally that the State Prosecutor lied himself and he repeated it. Researching the trial records, myself. He called Pistorius a liar twenty-nine (29) times, blatantly, by innuendo, by gibing:

“I think you're trying to cover up your lies,” said Nel.

“You are covering up your evidence. There is no other reason,” said Nel.

"The court should have no difficulty in rejecting his full version of events, not only as not reasonably possibly true, but in essence as being absolutely devoid of any truth," Nel told the court.

"It's a snowball effect of lies. You tell one and it becomes too much. You just have to keep going and going."

Lead counsel for the state, Gerrie Nel, said Pistorius was an “appalling witness” whose testimony had been “devoid of truth”, vague, argumentative and mendacious. He does not have an anxiety disorder but does have “anxiety on-call”, he said.

People react in different ways to trauma, experiencing a wide range of physical and emotional reactions. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to think, feel, or respond, so don’t can’t judge any person’s reactions to your own or those of other people. Their responses might be absolutely NORMAL reactions to ABNORMAL events. We witnessed a few symptoms by watching Pistorius from onset and throughout the trial.

Some of the emotional and psychological symptoms of trauma:

Physical symptoms of trauma:

Because he was more often than not accused of being a liar and tailoring his testimony, I’m going to give more attention to memory loss. Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable (and we saw that clearly as discussed in a previous article (Oscar Pistorius – Experts who weren’t experts, Part One). Misremembering may result from confusion of memories of perceived and imagined events, as there may be overlap between features of the stored information comprising memories for perceived and imagined events. Memories of events are always a mix of factual traces of sensory information overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings.Thus there is always scepticism about how valid a memory is as evidence of factual detail.

Memory loss is a frustrating and sometimes scary experience, especially if the memory loss is caused by a traumatic event. Research shows that physical and emotional trauma can directly affect your memory. Some of this memory loss may be a temporary way to help you cope with the trauma, and some of this memory loss may be permanent due to a severe brain injury or severe psychological trauma

Emotional or psychological trauma can also affect your memory. Memory loss is a natural survival skill and defence mechanism humans develop to protect themselves from psychological damage. Violence, sexual abuse and other emotionally traumatic events can lead to dissociative amnesia, which helps a person cope by allowing them to temporarily forget details of the event. A person will often suppress memories of a traumatic event until they are ready to handle them, which may never occur. Emotional trauma can also lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which can manifest itself in different ways including flashbacks of the event and intrusive, unwanted thoughts about the trauma.

* Have trouble functioning at home or work.

* Suffer from severe fear, anxiety or depression.

* Are experiencing terrifying memories, nightmares or flashbacks.

* Are emotionally numb and disconnected from others.

* Are avoiding things that remind you of the trauma.

* Are using alcohol or drugs to feel better.

In some cases, individuals may experience a traumatic event that triggers such a potent stress response via the sympathetic nervous system, that memory of the event becomes repressed.  The potency of the stress-response exceeds their innate ability to cope and other coping resources.  Emotions associated with the traumatic event are often overpowering, leading to intense sensations of: anger, depression, fear, guilt, hopelessness, or shame – all negative emotions.

For some individuals, these negative emotions seem to hit like a ton of bricks; so hard that they interfere with our cognitive function and memory processing.  The interference of the stress response with memory consolidation is what often leads to repression of memories or repression of details regarding traumatic experiences.  Some individuals may forget significant details surrounding the traumatic event, while others may forget the entire experience. In this case, there is a “gap” or lapse in memory surrounding the time of the trauma.  The individual knows that they endured the traumatic event, but they are so emotionally overwhelmed and physiologically “fried” that memory of the traumatic event is submerged beneath conscious perception.  The submerging of a memory beneath conscious perception is referred to as “repression” of a memory and is thought to serve as an innate psychological coping mechanism during times of overwhelming distress.

In psychology, there are terminologies that science students always should familiarize themselves with. Oftentimes, these terminologies are so humongous that you already forget what it means and what kind of examples to give just to explain a particular word for people who are not adept with science. We will just touch them superficially. These words at first must be well explained because at the middle of some concepts you will encounter these words. To understand fully you should already be familiar with these terminologies. Two of the terminologies used in psychology and its concepts are the words “suppression” and “repression”. Natures defence mechanisms.

Suppression vs Repression Summary:

1.Suppression is consciously forgetting an idea, an incident or an experience while repression is unconsciously forgetting an idea, an incident, or an experience.
2. Suppression and repression are defence mechanisms that we use at times of an incident in which we just want to forget or we do not want to talk about it.

To quickly differentiate the two words, “suppression” is “forgetting one’s thoughts and memories consciously.” For example, a woman was being raped by a stranger one cold night. After a few years, someone asked the woman if she had such an experience. She replied, “No,” even though there is. That is suppression. She is suppressing her bad thought consciously. Another example is when you asked someone who failed his exam. If he or she told you that they cannot remember about it, they are consciously suppressing their bad memory. Suppression of thoughts and memories are often related with bad and traumatic memories which are painful to that person. Regarding repression, it is the concept of forgetting one’s feeling unconsciously. For example, when we were asked at what age we talked and walked, we can reply, “I do not know.” This is because we were unconscious during those times. We were still young. We are not aware that we have them or know them. Another example of repression is when a child was being abused physically, but she cannot remember a thing. However, she has difficulty relating and trusting others, thus there is difficulty in forming relationships.

Repression was the first defence mechanism that Freud discovered, and arguably the most important. Repression is an unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious. Repression involves placing uncomfortable thoughts in relatively inaccessible areas of the subconscious mind. Thus when things occur that we are unable to cope with now, we push them away, either planning to deal with them at another time or hoping that they will fade away on their own accord.

The level of “forgetting” in repression can vary from a temporary abolition of uncomfortable thoughts to a high level of amnesia, where events that caused the anxiety are buried very deep. Repressed memories do not disappear. They can have an accumulative effect and reappear as unattributable anxiety or dysfunctional behaviour. A high level of repression can cause a high level of anxiety or dysfunction, although this may also be caused by the repression of one particularly traumatic incident. It has often been claimed that traumatic events are "repressed," yet it appears that it is more likely that the occurrence of these events is remembered in a distorted manner. One problem from an objective research point of view with this situation is that a "memory" is usually defined as what someone says or does. It cannot be measured or recorded objectively, since there is no way to verify the existence and/or accuracy of a memory except through its correspondence to some other, independent representation of past events (written records, photographs; reports of others, etc). Suppression is very similar defence mechanism, when you consciously forget something, or make the choice to avoid thinking about it. This is where the person consciously and deliberately pushes down any thoughts that lead to feelings of anxiety. Actions that take the person into anxiety-creating situations may also be avoided. The difference between suppression and repression lies in the fact that this latter defence mechanism is unconscious and under its influence repressed content becomes or remains unconscious.

Repression (sometimes called motivated forgetting) is a primary ego defence mechanism since the other ego mechanisms use it in tandem with other methods. Repression is unconscious. When we deliberately and consciously try to push away thoughts, this is suppression.  It is not all bad. If all uncomfortable memories were easily brought to mind we would be faced with a non-stop pain of reliving them. Talking about suppression, it is understandable that by avoiding situations or thoughts that lead to anxiety, the person minimizes their discomfort. However, as the feelings are still held in the subconscious, they continue to gnaw and create a sense of underlying and wearying low-level discomfort. 

Suppression and repression are categorized under defence mechanisms which people use in order for them to cope with a stimulus that can harm them. That was what Oscar Pistorius did, he tried to cope, nothing else. It was not a cognitive choice to lie as such, his mind repressed facts and by using these two defence mechanisms, they are able to protect their image or their identity by having a choice of saying no. These two words can explain why some people choose to say no and not comment when there is an issue. It is not that they are guilty but, rather, they just want to face these questions in a different manner of defence.

Symptoms typically last from a few days to a few months, gradually fading as you process the trauma. But even when you’re feeling better (the regular person coping with a traumatic event), you may be troubled from time to time by painful memories or emotions—especially in response to triggers such as an anniversary of the event or something that reminds you of the trauma. By rehashing and reliving the traumatic incident repeatedly was nothing but emotional abuse to Pistorius. By being called a liar and an appalling and discredited witness, the negative emotional and psychological impact on Oscar Pistorius was immensely and totally overpowering – not to mention unjustified, unfair, irregular – tailor made character assassination by the Prosecution.

Sometimes a current event or experience may trigger long-forgotten memories of earlier trauma. Often when this happens, the person may be “flooded” with implicit sensorimotor memory: he or she may have just the picture, the feeling, the physiological panic aroused by the memory of the traumatic event without the facts that would explain the meaning of the sensations. Initially, the person may not even be aware of what has triggered the memory, or how the pictures and feelings relate to his or her life. There is often intense psychological distress when a person is exposed to events which in some way resemble or symbolize the past trauma. These “triggers” may be any sound, smell, or another stimulus. Pistorius really struggled to cope as state pathologist described bullet wounds and shrapnel from the bathroom door which pierced Steenkamp's. A few times he lost all semblance of the composure he guarded so carefully. He was rocking back and forth, hands clasped behind his head, apparently trying to block out what he was hearing. His hands shook violently as he attempted to cover his ears. He threw up repeatedly and audibly into a bucket placed in the dock by one of the custody officers.

The State Prosecutor often accused him for manipulative behaviour, trying to disguise the truth. Nel told him he has a responsibility to the people to tell the truth. Pistorius said that he had the responsibility both for him and for Reeva to tell the truth. He said honestly he was testifying only to tell the truth, as much as he can remember from that night. Nel asked him if he is going to hide things from the Court. He said he wouldn’t. Even his Christianity got involved. Nel wanted to know if he lived on Christian principles? Pistorius said he tried to but he’s only human, he does sin. Nel then said as a Christian he wouldn’t lie and Oscar said again “I will try not to lie, as I said, I am human, I’m here to tell the truth.” Pistorius said he has taken responsibility by waiting for his time on the stand to tell his story out of respect of Reeva and himself. He has taken full responsibility of the consequences of his deeds, but when he was forced by Nel to look at a picture of Reeva’s head wounds - he refused and said that he will not be forced to look at that picture. He was extremely emotional and crying as he speaks. He said as he picked Reeva up he touched her head, he was there, he remembered. He keeps saying “I don’t have to look at a picture, I was there.” It’s really sickening to me that a person obviously battling through a trauma were taunted, provoked and made fun off repeatedly. His human rights were totally infringed and ignored. It’s unthinkable that a person was exposed over and over and over again to intense psychological distress and for the only reason, to proof he was supposedly lying or tailoring his evidence. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel completed his closing arguments and described Pistorius as a deceitful and dishonest person, who would rather hide behind untruths than admit he murdered his girlfriend in cold blood. Nel said Pistorius was an appalling witness who had tailored his evidence to avoid prosecution. He dismissed several points of Pistorius’s testimony as improbable and untruthful.

It’s another proof that everything didn’t happen as it should. There was no adhering to the NPA’s Code of Conduct, there was no humanity, no empathy for a person in severe distress and agony – only accusations, ignorance and underhanded methods of deceit.

"Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honours of a hero in the country of his victims." - Alan Barth.

Is it not questionable, that an experienced State Prosecutor claiming to have a sound case for premeditated murder, would take advantage of character assassination and defamation to validate his case? Why did he feel the need to resort to underhand tactics? Surely, this would not have been necessary in the presence of clear substantiated evidence, or acceptable in the genuine pursuit of justice? Were the tactics of the State Prosecutor, described in legal circles as prosecutorial misconduct, those of a man with a healthy respect for Pistorius’s equal rights? Does he routinely rely on being on a grandstand; lie himself and manipulate to reach his goal, bully and torment? Does he ignore his profession’s code of conduct and put the ambition to ‘win’ above the search for truth in every trial he is involved in?

He painstakingly concentrated on memories, goaded and harassed Pistorius to remember, relive, give details, but only succeeded to get him confused, disconnected, overwhelmed, edgy and agitated and then had the courage of his convictions to call him a liar repeatedly. The Media waiting on the side like vultures, descended on those snippets of confusion as lies and went global with it. Pistorius already torn to pieces by the incident, as a tortured soul who went through a devastating trauma himself, had to endure this repeated abuse for a very long time. A broken man who, without a moment’s doubt, struggled with immense shock, disbelief, confusion, guilt, shame, self-blame, hopelessness, anxiety and fear. Pistorius is a person in denial that something devastating like that could happen without premeditation, his spontaneous and rational disbelief was repeatedly called lying, cheating, narcissistic – that was highly irregular and unjustified. The Great State Prosecutor himself forgot that memories of events are always a mix of factual traces of sensory information overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Thus there is always supposed to be scepticism about how valid a memory is as evidence of factual detail. Proven and scientific evidence is supposed to tip the scale, not the remnants of abusive and unfair cross-examination, all bluster, none crucial proven evidence. The puppet master at play and the media willingly participated in this offence.

Deception is considered unethical in almost any other profession. What makes this a unique case? I realize they are trying to catch criminals. But the problem is, they do not know if the person they are deceiving into a confession is actually a criminal in the first place, because there was no trial when the deception took place. Oscar Pistorius was deceived and lulled into false comfort and degree of safety. The worst of it all, it happened on the worst day of his life. It happened when he was hysterical, numb, shocked and traumatised beyond comprehension. For all they know, they were tripping up a nervous innocent person into a confession. In fact, they were luring him into a trap when he was most vulnerable.

During Pistorius’ testimony he recounted his version of what happened that fateful morning after Reeva was shot. While still at the house, Station Commissioner, Col Van Rensburg came over to him and put his hand on his shoulder and said that he didn’t need to speak to anybody but that he needed him to go to the garage; they’d like to take some photos and a police photographer would also be there. The same officer that had been at the bottom of the stairs took Oscar to the garage, along with Van Rensburg. That same officer stayed in the garage with Oscar the whole time.

From the garage he was taken to the foyer area of his home and a police officer introduced himself, as Col Gerard Labuschagne (later during the trial promoted to Brigadier, currently called Ex-Brigadier/Ex-Professor/now Advocate), and told Oscar that he was a family member of his and that he didn’t have anything to worry about. He was there to look after him. Col Van Rensburg then informed him that since he was the only person in the house they were going to charge him. They placed him under arrest and walked him to a waiting car in the driveway, along with two other officers. One officer sat next to him in the back of the car, one officer drove and the officer that was identified as the family member, Labuschagne, sat in the passenger side of the car.

They first went to Boschkop Police Station and consequently to the Mamelodi Hospital where they spent nearly three hours together at the hospital, most of the time alone – Labuschagne on a chair, Pistorius on an examination bed – in a small consulting room. A doctor eventually came in and took scrapes from under Pistorius’s nails, examined his body for scratches and bruises. Then more waiting for blood and urine tests, to all of which he numbly succumbed. As it turned out, all the tests drew blanks (for the sake of completeness mentioned). No alcohol, no illegal drugs, no physical evidence of a fight. Nothing here that could be used in court against him, making it all the more urgent that while Pistorius’s state of mind was still raw from the shooting, Labuschagne should try and identify something of value for the prosecution case. Labuschagne’s problem was that the lawyers had already intervened to the point of forbidding the police from asking him anything about the events of the night.

Now, that was what piqued my interest. Very peculiar, why would the Head of the Investigative Psychology Unit be there the same day of the incident. I followed his working days on the Unit’s Facebook page, it was quite informative. Quite a busy man; here in conference, there on a shooting range, here on the plane to one or other case, there in the court. By his own admission, he calls himself a profiler, his speciality field serial rapist and killers. In his 14 years as Crime Scene and Police Forensic Phycologist, he has testified in more than 100 cases, and has investigated more than 300 serial murders and rapes. Why was he almost immediately on the Pistorius scene, even before he was officially arrested? Pistorius was a first time offender, no doubt, there was no indication that he was a serial rapist and/or killer. Would the Ex-Brigadier rush to any other similar scene too? Would he do that for every shooting accident or only the ‘special case’ (which was vehemently guarded not to be called a special case). It was rumoured that he was called to provide expert testimony about Pistorius’ state of mind while he was ‘out of his mind’ I presume. He told Pistorius he was family and he was there “to look after” him (Pistorius). Deception of the worst grade!!

In fact, apart from the first fraught exchanges with the police at dawn, never at any point did Pistorius submit to police interrogation of any kind. Labuschagne, was there to get the information, he was looking for a way to break the ice, and mentioned that they had both happened to go to the same high school in Pretoria. He spoke about sport, asked Pistorius about his running in what turned out to be a vain effort to stem his shocked and painful weeping. But the attempt at conversation yielded, at best, monosyllabic replies, until one question elicited a burst of anger. Labuschagne asked him if he wanted anything to eat. “How do you expect me to eat now!?” Pistorius shouted back. Pleased with the outburst, eager to elicit more of the same, Labuschagne repeated the question moments later. Was he sure he did not want to eat something? Back came the same exasperated response, followed by wails that echoed down the hospital corridors, reaching the ears of his family members Aimee and Arnold who were on their way to the room where he was being held.  They were escorted by uniformed police who had warned them they could not have any physical contact with him, they only were allowed to bring him some fresh clothing. (The police were opposing bail and he would need clothes for the night, which he would be spending in a cell, and for the next morning when he would appear before a magistrate to be formally charged.) The encounter with his relatives was as brief as it was sombre and heart wrenching. They left again and he returned to his bed, more shattered than before. Towards late the same afternoon Labuschagne and two other policemen drove Pistorius back to the police station again to be held.

Labuschagne went to bed that night, hopefully in some frustration, having derived little of value for the prosecution case. “The suspect’s emotional state was entirely consistent”, he concluded, “with that of someone whose life had abruptly gone to pieces.” Nothing he had said or done had offered any clue as to whether he had knowingly murdered Reeva Steenkamp, as the police contended, or whether the shooting had been, as Pistorius had claimed in the very first phone call he had made, a terrible accident. Labuschagne then disappeared from the scene (wonderful, caring, self-proclaimed family member he was - who did what he wanted to do, gain damning information and to deceive Pistorius into a confession by lulling him into false comfort and a degree of safety) until the trial. He appeared during the trial again spotted and mentioned by several Media houses. His only reason for being there when Pistorius testified was to be watching Pistorius closely throughout his testimony only to look for weaknesses and mannerisms that could be exploited to the prosecution’s advantage in cross-examination. Not the thoughtful, caring family member there to give him support and encouragement at all, wasn’t he?

In my opinion, this was a despicable criminal act! It was the cruellest, nastiest conspiracy against a vulnerable, distressed, traumatised person – irrelevant who and what he is or was.  As I mentioned before, they didn’t know if the person they were deceiving into a confession was actually a criminal in the first place, because there was no trial when the deception took place. And they call Pistorius a volatile, controlling, lying, cheating, narcissistic abuser?? I rest my case.

Between all the ‘selfies’ of the Ex-Brigadier, weird photos and travel arrangements displayed on the Facebook page of Investigative Psychology Unit I found a photo of copy of a book concerning the Pistorius case. The comment accompanying the post was made by Labuschagne himself: “Print journalists seem to struggle to get things right. Brigadier (not Colonel), I heard about the shooting at 07h00 from a colleague (not a newspaper and I didn’t have twitter then), I spoke quite a bit to Oscar but about general things, no superior told me to get involved”.

Who involved or invited the Forensic Psychologist then? His friend the Prosecutor or the NPA for the only reason of soliciting Pistorius into confession of premeditated murder? Or did he rush there to become part of all the action and the media hype himself? Who were the worst liars of this case? The person who battled to remember the facts or significant details with memory loss due to suppression and repression, coping defence mechanisms to survive a horrific trauma or the ‘experts’ and so-called professionals working and scheming together. Those who were all supposed to gain proven facts and evidence in a proper scientific way to ensure an unbiased and fair trial?

From a pop psychology perspective, the textbook definition of narcissism is fairly harmless, described as, “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” From a psychoanalysis point of view, it’s much more critical: “self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder.” Experts are now finding through new clinical studies, that this existing narcissistic mental disorder is now being further exacerbated by the introduction of hand-held technology and the ability to upload an image to a ready-made crowd of voyeurs in a matter of seconds. In a study about this narcissistic mental disorder, the authors examined self-objectification, along with three traits, known as the “Dark Triad”: narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism. They’re called “dark” because they have an almost evil connotation and are associated with a callous and manipulative way of interacting with other people. Callous and manipulative the fundamental traits of the Pistorius case. They called Pistorius a lot of names and attributed nasty traits to him, I believe those traits can be attributed to a lot of other role players. 

"When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated." 

Michael Ende

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool."

Stephen King

"Glorify a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. "

E. H. Chapin