PRETORIA: Double amputee Oscar Pistorius was standing on his stumps when he smashed down a locked toilet door to reach his shot girlfriend, a South African police forensic expert said on Wednesday, countering the Paralympic star’s assertion he was wearing his prosthetic legs at the time.

Wielding the cricket bat in his hands, police colonel Johannes Vermeulen knelt down before swinging it at the wooden door in a court reconstruction to show the angle of the marks and to suggest they could only have been made by someone much shorter than him.

Pistorius had in his affidavit stated he had put on his prostheses before smashing down the door.

“The marks on the door are actually consistent with him not having his legs on and I suspect they must be similar to the height that he was when he fired the shots,” Vermeulen told the court.

Defence advocate Barry Roux countered by suggesting that even with his legs on, Pistorius would not be swinging a bat at the same height as an able-bodied person.

Close-up photographs of the damaged door were shown in court, as well as scuffs on the bat autographed by South African Test cricketer Herschelle Gibbs.

Roux later heaped scorn on the state’s evidence, again accusing police of shoddy detective work, after Vermeulen testified that police reassembled the broken door with a temporary adhesive.

“The door was brought up from the bathroom in a body bag. The panels were loose,” the police colonel testified, adding he received both the door and the cricket bat in materially different condition from how they were found at the scene.

Vermeulen also said he did know where the door had been kept immediately after it was removed from Pistorius’ house.

Roux countered that door was marred by “serious marks” while with forensics.

Pistorius’ defence has looking to sow doubt about the quality of the police work in the case, particularly around its handling of evidence.—Reuters