Oscar 'screams like a woman': lawyer

Oscar Pistorius screams like a woman when he is anxious, the High Court in Pretoria was told during his murder trial on Monday.

"You know ...if Mr Pistorius is very anxious if he screams it sounds like a woman's voice," said Pistorius's counsel Barry Roux, SC.

He was cross-examining witness Michelle Burger who said she heard the screams the night he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

The court giggled slightly at Roux's submission, which came during a lengthy period of cross-examining Burger -- who has testified that she heard a woman's screams on that night, and a man's screams, then a woman's scream, then nothing.

Roux said witnesses could testify to this trait of Pistorius.

"He was screaming higher and lower and that is why you would hear what you, at that time of the morning, would associate with a man screaming and a woman screaming," said Roux.

He said one thing the court had heard from Burger's testimony was that all the screams she heard were not at the same time.

The State will try to prove that he committed pre-meditated murder.

Earlier, his defence denied the State's contention that Pistorius and Steenkamp had argued before her death around 3am on Valentine's Day.

Roux said: "All I'm saying when he's anxious his voice pitches and it sounds like a woman screaming."

Burger insisted she heard a woman scream.