Pistorius’s unsupportive father has strong Eastern Cape links

HENKE Pistorius, described by his murder-accused son Oscar as an absent father, spent years of the paralympian’s early adulthood in the Eastern Cape.

Details around the 62-year-old man’s extensive ties to the province – and that he frequently bragged about his son in the region – have emerged, while the world awaits the resumption of the murder trial on Monday.

Pistorius senior spent at least three years living at the Ferryman’s Hotel in Port Alfred from 2008 and later spent a substantial amount of time in Nelson Mandela Bay and its surrounds.

At the Stagedoor in Port Elizabeth’s Phoenix Hotel, Pistorius watched his son famously make history at the 2012 London Olympics, where he was the first double amputee to compete against able-bodied athletes.

Pistorius confirmed his Eastern Cape ties shortly before the recent postponement of the trial.

Port Elizabeth is also home to the grieving Steenkamp family, and where their slain model daughter Reeva started her modelling career.

The city is also home to the only athletics track – at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) – where the fallen paralympics hero has competed in the province.

Pistorius was competing in an Olympic qualifier event at the university ahead of the London Olympics. He came second in the race.

Earlier last month, during his testimony and cross- examination in the Pretoria court, Pistorius highlighted his distant relationship with his father. In his testimony, Pistorius said his father, who divorced his mother while he was young, had often worked away from home, leaving her to raise him and his siblings.

Pistorius also outlined his early life growing up disabled and without his father present.

“My mother had a lot of security concerns, we grew up in a family where my father wasn’t around much.

“She would often get scared at night ... phone the police,” he said.

Despite the lack of a close relationship between father and son, Henke, who lived in the Eastern Cape from 2008, bragged constantly in Port Alfred and Port Elizabeth that the 27-year-old Blade Runner was his son.

Pistorius has also been accused of misbehaviour in both regions – which he later denied in an interview with the Weekend Post.

While living in Port Alfred, he sold agricultural lime through the Pistorius’s family company SA Lime Eastern Cape.

In PE, he was a regular at the popular Bridge Street Brewery, where he was also known to tout his paternal relationship to Oscar.

He was involved in a PE-based lime quarry business until selling his shares in the company. Prior to that, Pistorius was also known in Addo near Port Elizabeth, where he was also in the lime supply business.

Notable by his absence at his son’s trial, where he was only seen during the bail applications stage, Pistorius’s current whereabouts have not been established, and he was last seen by those interviewed by Weekend Post, in Port Elizabeth, more than a year ago.