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Johannesburg – The correctional services department yesterday declined to comment on a report that convicted paralympian Oscar Pistorius wept himself to sleep on his first day in prison.
“We’ve never given a blow-by-blow account of how an offender is progressing on a day-to-day basis,” department spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said.

“We’ve never done that for other offenders and we won’t do that for him.”

The Times quoted sources as saying that Pistorius cried quite a bit before falling asleep at the Kgosi Mampuru prison in Pretoria on his first night there.

“You could hear him. Shortly after the door closed you could hear the tears . . . he was torn up. Broken. The crying went on and on. We think he stopped when he fell asleep. It was really bad,” a prison source said.

Another source said he was being monitored constantly.

The newspaper reported that his routine in prison would include waking up at 05:30 daily, eating breakfast at 07:00, lunch at noon, and dinner at 16:00 – all in his cell. It reported that this week he would begin a 21-day risks and needs assessment. His orientation would include warning him of the dangers such as gangsterism and contraband, and determining whether he was a suicide risk.

Pistorius was sentenced to prison for five years for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He shot her through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home thinking she was an intruder.

Meanwhile, Pistorius’s disability was no basis for him to escape prison time, President Jacob Zuma said, according to reports.

The Guardian reported that Zuma criticised the Paralympian’s defence team, who had argued that he should be spared prison because he is disabled and has money.

Zuma told The Guardian in Pretoria that there were physically challenged people in prison and that Pistorius’s disability and the fact that he had money was not an issue to debate.

Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down her sentence shortly after 10:30 on Tuesday morning.

“Count 1, culpable homicide, sentence imposed is maximum of five years.”

He was also sentenced to three years in jail, suspended for five years, for discharging a firearm in a Johannesburg restaurant. Both sentences will run concurrently.

Pistorius will be eligible for his sentence to be commuted to correctional supervision after 10 months.

In terms of Section 276 of the Criminal Procedure Act, the accused may serve one-sixth of the sentence. For a five-year sentence, this would amount to 10 months.

“I’ve taken into account the seriousness of the offence, which led to the death of Steenkamp, the personal circumstances of the accused, and the interests of society,” Judge Masipa said during sentencing.

“I’m of the view that a non-custodial sentence would send the wrong message. A long sentence would also not be appropriate either as it would lack the element of mercy.

“If sentences are too lenient, the administration of justice will fall into disrepute and people will take law into their own hands.

“A suspended sentence would not be appropriate in my view,” Masipa said.

“The loss of life can’t be reversed. Hopefully judgment on sentence will provide some sort of closure for all concerned.”

During the closing arguments Pistorius’s defence lawyer Barry Roux, said “We’ve a vulnerable person that used excessive force… He never ever entertained the thought that the deceased was in the toilet… he thought she was in the bedroom.”

He said when people saw the athlete they did not realise the impact the disability had on him and the difficulties he faced. “There’s pain and treatment needed,” he said. – News24