Prosecutor tears into Pistorius as court is shown horrific picture of Reeva's gunshot head wound

A prosecutor demanded that Oscar Pistorius publicly 'take responsibility' for killing his girlfriend while telling him to look at a graphic image of the gunshot wound to Reeva Steenkamp's head.

Gerrie Nel said the model's skull 'exploded' when it was struck by one of four bullets that the double-amputee runner fired through a closed toilet door in his home last year.
The photograph showed a side view of the her head, with a mass of blood and human tissue on the back and upper parts. Her eyes were closed.

'It's time that you look at it,' Mr Nel thundered indignantly on the first day of his cross-examination.
'I remember,' Pistorius said, becoming distraught and turning away from where the photo was shown on a TV screen next to him to audible gasps in the courtroom.
'I don't have to look at a picture. I was there.'
Pistorius, his voice rising and starting to sob, said his hands had touched her brain tissue when he claims he tried to help her after the shooting.

Back on the stand: Pistorius (centre) is accompanied by relatives as he walks to the high court in Pretoria

Mr Nel had set the stage for a rigorous cross-examination by demanding that Pistorius openly say he killed his girlfriend, sharply challenging him when he said he made a 'mistake.'
Mr Nel shouted: 'You made a mistake? You killed a person, that's what you did! You used to be a model to disabled athletes everywhere.
'You shot and killed her, won't you take responsibility for that?'
He asked Pistorius to say he 'shot and killed her', but the amputee runner refused, replying merely: 'I did.'
Mr Nel tried to drive a wedge between the rosy former image of Pistorius and the ideals the runner has said he aspires to, and the prosecution depiction of the runner as a hothead with a gun obsession.