With only a few weeks left before Judge Thokozile Masipa gives her final decision on the Oscar Pistorius trial, Karen Tewson recently released a research paper showing the trauma that witnesses felt after being questioned on the stand.
The head of court preparation at the National Prosecuting Authority in South Africa interviewed the 37 professionals, academics, and laymen who faced the "often hostile" cross examination in the "intimidating courtroom environment."
Richard Dixon, who worked with police forensics, was cross examined on his opinion about the order of gunshots being different from state pathologist Gert Saayman's findings.
He admitted that prosecutor Gerrie Nel focused on attacking his 18 year credential instead of his personal opinion on that night Reeva Steenkamp was killed.
"For the layman, it can be very traumatic to stand up there," he said, according to The Guardian.
Seeing that a professional himself, who has had extensive experience in dealing with "intimidating court environments," Dixon noted that the star athlete himself could have ended up being confused after a long period of questioning.
"You're not just getting questioned on your personal knowledge but on yourself," Dixon continued. "The system we have tries to break down your evidence and, if it can't do that, it tries to break you. After six days in the box, you could see how Oscar Pistorius himself was getting confused."
Pistorius' neighbour and witnesses for the prosecution, Annette Stipp and husband Johan, also shared their traumatizing experience during the Oscar Pistorius trial. They maintained their initial statement of hearing a woman's scream before gunshots that Valentines' Day until the end. However, defense attorney Barry Roux was also unrelenting.
During Roux' final statement, he called the Stipp's testimony "exaggerated and contradictory" which created "doubt as to [their] reliability."
"We feel trampled by a bus," she told the research team about her experience on the stand.
Another witness for the prosecution, Charl Johnson told The Guardian, "It's not a pleasurable experience but one's got to do what one feels is the right thing."
"They are not going to spare you," Dixon further commented on the "strong legal eagles" of the Oscar Pistorius trial.
