Reeva's Mum: 'I've Got No Feelings Of Revenge'

Reeva Steenkamp's mother says she has no feelings of revenge against Oscar Pistorius, a year after the Paralympian was jailed for shooting dead her daughter.

June Steenkamp was addressing a group of schoolchildren, two days after the athlete – who received a five-year sentence - was released from prison and transferred to house arrest .

He was convicted of culpable homicide - the equivalent of manslaughter - last October.

Mrs Steenkamp was launching the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation at a school in the southern South African city of Port Elizabeth.

She told a group of teenagers: “I don’t think that I should actually discuss what I would say to him, but I've got no feelings of revenge.

"I don't want to hurt him. He's already a disabled person."

In her first comments since Pistorius’ release, she continued:

"I didn't want him to be thrown in jail and be suffering ... that's not going to bring Reeva back.

"But in my heart I don't want revenge towards him, I'm past that.

"One has to forgive to move on, otherwise you become ill …

"God expects you to forgive, and until you’ve done that you can’t move forward in any way."

When asked how she was coping, Mrs Steenkamp added: "It's been a hard journey and it's going to go on until the day I die."

Pistorius is spending his period of house arrest at his uncle Arnold's home in a suburb of the capital, Pretoria.

Pistorius family spokeswoman Anneliese Burgess said on Tuesday they were glad to have him home and that he would observe his parole conditions closely.

The 28-year-old shot four times through his bathroom door on Valentine’s Day last year, killing Ms Steenkamp.

He claimed he had mistaken his 29-year-old model girlfriend for an intruder.

He still faces an appeal on 3 November, in which prosecutors will argue he should have been convicted of murder rather than culpable homicide.

They claim he must have known the person behind the bathroom door could have been killed – and that the trial judge misinterpreted parts of the law.

A murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Legal experts say the five judges hearing the case could reject the prosecution's appeal, order a retrial or convict Pistorius of murder themselves.

Pistorius is not obliged to attend the hearing.