'Woman, then man cried for help'

A woman's cries for help were followed by a man shouting for help on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday (04/03/2014).

"I stood on the balcony and heard a woman shouting for help, then a man shouting help, help, help," Charl Johnson said in questioning from prosecutor Gerrie Nel.

He testified that he woke up in the early hours of February 14 last year to a woman screaming.

He got up and went to the balcony 10m from his bed. As he stood there he heard more screaming.

"I could hear she was in trouble... clearly distressed calls."

The tall, slender man, smartly dressed in a suit, initially had to be asked to speak up several times as he began his testimony.

Johnson, an IT project manager, is married to Michelle Burger, the first witness to testify in Oscar Pistorius's murder trial.

Their townhouse in the Silver Stream Estate is 177m from Pistorius's in the neighbouring Silver Woods Country Estate.

The State will try to prove that Pistorius committed premeditated murder when he shot and killed Steenkamp through a toilet door in his Pretoria home on February 14 last year.

In addition he is charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and recklessly discharging a firearm in public. Pistorius contends he mistook her for an intruder when he shot through the toilet door. - Sapa