June drops Reeva 'no sex' bombshell

June Steenkamp, in a moving memoir, claims her daughter Reeva never had sex with boyfriend Oscar Pistorius.

In Reeva: a Mother's Story, June says the 29-year-old model confided in her that the celebrity couple had spent nights together but not had sexual relations as she "was scared to take the relationship to that level".

They had been dating for only three months when the Paralympian athlete nicknamed the Blade Runner shot and killed her.

On Tuesday, Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison for culpable homicide for shooting Reeva, having been acquitted of the more serious charge of murder. He is serving his sentence at Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria.

Pistorius told the High Court in Pretoria that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot her in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 through a toilet door at his home at Silver Woods Estate in Pretoria.

However, 68-year-old June says she is convinced he lied in court and knew who he was aiming at when he fired four bullets through the locked door and "blew the brains out of her skull".

In a joint interview with husband Barry in the London Times, June said she believed that her daughter knew "in her heart of hearts" that she would not be happy with the volatile and "combustible" double amputee and had decided to end the affair.

She writes in her book: "Her clothes were packed. There is no doubt in our minds: she had decided to leave Oscar that night.

"It was Reeva's bad luck that she met him, because sooner or later he would have killed someone. I do believe that."

June Steenkamp also describes Pistorius as: "moody", "arrogant", "possessive", "gun-toting", "vague", "shifty" and "evasive".

In other sensational claims, she told The Times that if the fallen athlete had not killed her daughter, he would have killed somebody else "sooner or later".

She said she believed the "trigger-happy" double amputee shot his girlfriend in a jealous rage, then finished her off with three more bullets so she "couldn't tell the world what really happened".

"I think he may have shot once and then he had to go on and kill her because she would have been able to tell the world what really happened, what he's really like.

"He said pulling the trigger was 'an accident'. What? Four times an accident?" June writes in her book. "He said Reeva did not scream, but she would definitely have screamed. I know my daughter and she was very vocal."

Both June and Barry have children from their previous marriages.

Reeva, a late child, was "unexpected", June says. "I think she was a gift from God."

"Oscar's story, I don't believe," she told The Times. "It seems to me he did not look for her when he says he thought he heard intruders. Not one of his actions suggests he felt protective towards her.

"A lot of people have guns in South Africa and everyone knows, bottom line, you never ever shoot if you have not checked where your own people are.

"To look at him now, he's a pathetic figure. He looks haunted. He's already been punished in a way. Whatever is in his head is in his head forever. He will have to live with that," she writes in Reeva: a Mother's Story.

June says when Reeva appeared at the South African Sports Awards on Pistorius's arm in November 2012, her friends feared she had become a "trophy girlfriend".

The athlete told the court during his testimony that Reeva had struggled with the press scrutiny that came with the relationship. June dismissed this as "rubbish".

She speculated that Reeva enjoyed the attention, and that perhaps a relationship with the superstar athlete clouded her judgment.

"How much of an unattractive attitude did she dismiss because he was a golden boy? How much was she flattered to have won his heart?"

In the three months that they knew each other, Reeva and Pistorius had become one of South Africa's most glamorous couples. She had broken up with her long-term boyfriend Warren Lahoud, the man her parents thought she would marry, a few months earlier. There was a brief dalliance with Springbok scrumhalf Francois Hougaard.

During the trial, Pistorius said he and Reeva were planning a life together, but June told The Times that her daughter had "nagging doubts about their compatibility".

"She had confided to me that she hadn't slept with him. They'd shared a bed, but she was scared to take the relationship to that level ... She wouldn't want to sleep with Oscar if she wasn't sure.

"I believe their relationship was coming to an end. In her heart of hearts, she didn't think it was making either of them happy."

Both June and 71-year-old Barry said they believed their daughter was gradually being ground down by Pistorius's constant demands and moody temperament.

Reeva was unhappy when she arrived at Pistorius's house for the last time. CCTV footage, according to her mother, shows her looking miserable as she approaches the gated estate. Something was brewing. The couple were fighting.

The Steenkamps said they believed the testimony of a neighbour who heard two people arguing from 1.56am, which Judge Thokozile Masipa discounted in her verdict.

"There is no doubt in our minds that something went horribly wrong, something upset her so terribly that she hid behind a locked door with two mobile phones," June writes.

Other facts did not add up, said the Steenkamps. Reeva was shot wearing a sleeveless black top and grey tracksuit shorts, "clothes for a summer's day, not her night clothes".

She was facing the door when the first bullet struck her hip, "probably pleading".

Her mother told The Times she was also troubled by police photographs that showed Reeva's jeans strewn across the bedroom floor, because Reeva was a "neat freak". "She would never leave them on the floor. She was tidy to the extreme."

In the book, Reeva's mother dissects every text, tweet and e-mail in the brief relationship, looking for hidden meaning.

She concludes that it was volatile and unpredictable.

Reeva said Pistorius scared her, and that he picked on her "incessantly".

"Either of them could have received a Valentine's Day message from another admirer that might have sparked a row," says June.

June told Hello! magazine this week that Pistorius's jail term was "the best sentence we could have expected".

"We're not looking for vengeance or for him to get hurt; we're just happy because he's going to be punished for what he's done.

"He may come out early on good behaviour, but by the time he's served that time, it will have taught him that he can't go around doing things like that.

"I believe Oscar expected to go to prison. He was almost resigned to what was coming. It was obvious in the court from his manner; he was calm and wasn't performing."

The couple told The Times they have a recurring image of Reeva's last minutes. It is the thought of her terrified and alone in the small toilet cubicle, pleading for her life or screaming in agony after she had been shot.

"Both of us are haunted by the same nightmare. The vision of Reeva suffering this terrible trauma. Her terror and helplessness. Her yells for help piercing the silent night air."

Reeva's mother says she sat through the trial because she wanted justice and the truth.

Pistorius had "lost a lot." He is in jail, penniless, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and his reputation is in tatters, she said..

"But Reeva's lost the possibility of having a grandchild for us. Having a baby, getting married. And, of course, her career was going so well. She was just about to take off.

"Now, she's not even here breathing, you know. That's the thing."