The Oscar Pistorius story has all the ingredients of a Shakespearean tragedy, complete with sub-plots. The lead actor, a man struck down by a terrible handicap, yet blessed with the courage, determination and skill of a Greek hero, picks himself up, challenges the world and wins. His reward is universal fame and adoration, untold wealth and power and a beautiful girlfriend to match. Then, it all goes horribly wrong. His girlfriend is murdered, seemingly by his own hand. He is hauled before the courts like a common criminal, his reputation in tatters, his world turned inside out.

The initial facts of the case, as presented in newspapers across the world,  seem totally convincing and damning. Pistorius, the owner of a hand gun, fires that gun four times at his girlfriend who had apparently locked herself in the bathroom in the early hours of St Valentine’s Day. Neighbours report hearing the sounds of a violent argument prior to the shooting. Nobody else was present even though Pistorious maintains that he thought he was shooting at an intruder – through a locked door. On those facts you’d be forgiven for thinking that a conviction is a mere formality. I wonder.

Oscar Pistorious has money, lots of it and he will use it all should it be required to keep him out of prison. Already (and we are only in the preliminary stages of this case)his expensively hired lawyers, the best that money can buy, have made significant progress on behalf of their client and have secured for him an unlikely bail. Even so, surely  justice will be done and a conviction will follow? I wouldn’t bet on it, money talks and the more you have the louder it talks.

 Remember that famous, wealthy American sportsman, who a few years back, seemed to have been caught  bang to rights for the murder of his wife? Well, he was acquitted after a brilliant performance by his lawyers, who managed to convince a, no doubt, star-struck and impressionable jury of his innocence. The Oscar Pistorious case could well turn out to be O.J. Simpson revisited.