12/09/2014 Newsnight

Ian Paisley has died, went from this: We say never, never, never,

never... To this, in the space of a lifetime. We will recall his

eventful journey and what it meant for Northern Ireland. Meanwhile in

Scotland. Just last week there was an SNP council up north to get

people to wave a Union Flag. It is a potent symbol when Better Together

are waving the Scottish saltire, is the Union Flag now toxic north of

the border. Where does Ken Loach this it is so hard to sell

Britishness. Here on the ground it is not America

but Iran that is running the show. And not just three their proxys, the

Shia militia. It is the last night of the Newsnight Proms.

Good evening, Ian Paisley, DUP leader, Dr No, Presbyterian

fundamentalist, and First Minister of Northern Ireland has died at the

age of 88. For more than 50 years for good or ill he made the weather

in Northern Ireland with blistering, uncompromising sermons and speeches

and his belief in no surrender. He denounced the Good Friday peace

accord in 1998 and said there was not a snowball's chance in hell he

would work with Sinn Fein unless the IRA surrendered all weapons

publicly. But when the IRA did eventually disarm and renounce

violence it was a short step to the moment he sat down together with

Gerry Adams. Here is our political editor.

We will organise massive demonstrations... Face fit for a

statue, beliefs etched in granite, and some of the most powerful lungs

the world might ever have heard. He was a could loss colossas. But then

he became a yes man. I wonder why people hate me, I'm just a nice man.

The man himself knew he had divided a nation. Paisley became a preacher

at 16 and set up the Free prise by tearian Church by 25, maturing into

a well known Protestant firebrand. Paisley's support grew and

membership of his support doubled when he clashed with the Catholic

civil rights movement and imprisoned in 1968. Election to the Stormont

and Westminster parliaments in 1970 followed, and in 1971 he created the

Democratic Unionist Party, finally the famous Paisley position was

crystallising. There would be no surrender, not an inch, to those

crystallising. There would be no wanting Irish Government in Northern

Ireland. Where do the terrorists return to for sanctuary, to the

Irish Republic. And yet Mrs Thatcher tells us that Republic must have

some say in our province. We say never, never, never, never.

(Cheering) In the eyes of some, his denunciations of terror were

undermined when he appeared to flirt with extremism himself. He always

denied this. The RUC tell me that I am breaking the law because I put a

red beret on my head with an Ulster badge on it, it is time we stood up

and told the RUC... In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was struck, despite

opposition from Paisley, he vilified David Trimable for signing up. This

paper will destroy the union. In the last two-and-a-half years I have

been giving sense. After the IRA disarmed in 2007, Paisley stunned

the world, he went into Government with former IRA commander, Martin

McGuinness. I think his contribution to peace in Northern Ireland has

been immense. I mean he was the person who ultimately took the

decision, with a lot of courage to make it happen and the man who, in a

sense, was the person famous for saying no, will find his place in

history for having said yes. He said yes and with a chortle, he and

Martin McGuinness were often seen laughing together and were known as

the Chuckle Brothers. Some say an illness had focussed his mind before

death. Others that the violence in Northern Ireland changed so he

changed his mind. It was one of the best things that ever happened. We

still face our challenge, but I will always treasure the year that he and

I were in the office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister

together. We were once opponents but today I have lost a friend. But some

of his old adversaries don't quite see it like that. I think that

whatever about the fact that people speak well about people after their

death. It seems to me any assessment of Ian Paisley and his role in

Northern Ireland has to be a negative one. Mr Paisley is a man

who has injected booster shots of sectarian venom to the body politic

in Northern Ireland, right from a period from the early to mid-60s to

30 more years, in so far as he was clearing up the mess towards the end

of his life. He was clearing up a mess to which some measure had been

of his own making. Paisley makes the most bellicose defend of the union,

passed away in a week where the union faces its most serious

challenge. There is uncertainty, our passionate pro-union sentiments are

they dying away too? Observers say Ian Paisley began life wanting to

lead a church, a political party and become Prime Minister. He was

ambitious and he got there. But many wish the no-man who eventually said

yes, had said "maybe" a little earlier in his life.

We will hear more about that later in the programme.

Earlier this evening I spoke to the deputy leader of the DUP party,

Nigel Dodds, I asked him whether anyone else could have got the two

sides together? It is very difficult to conceive of anybody else being

able to deliver what he did deliver in the end, which was a Sinn Fein

which had decommissioned its weaponry of the IRA, which had

committed to full support of the police, the courts and the rule of

law. You say in the end, he repeatedly said never surrender, no

surrender, not to Sunningdale, not to the Anglo-Irish Agreement or the

Good Friday Agreement, in those years a lot of people suffered on

both sides, partly some would say because of his intransigence? The

one thing about Ian Paisley he was first and foremost a democrat. He

was man to believed very strongly in the democratic process, he always

condemned in the strongest terrorism violence or terrorism, whichever

side it came from. What he was very keen to establish was a durable way

forward, which did not give either undue influence to the Dublin

Government, as the Anglo-Irish agreement did in 1985, or which put

terrorists into the heart of Government in Northern Ireland with

them still holding on to their weapons and not supporting the

police. His language was inflammatory wasn't it? He said the

most extraordinary things, and often the accusation of bigotry was often

laid at his door. He tacked about Catholics breeding like rabbits and

the Pope was called the scarlet woman of Rome. This was not just

rhetoric, it was deeply wounding to a lot of people. All the Catholics

in the country, it was incredibly wounding and he knew it. I was

reading an article today I think it was in the New Statesman, in which

they recalled a reporter going and listening to one of his sermons, and

saying it was no different from the preachers in the Deep South of

America, or the Protestant chapels in South Wales. His belief was very

strong in terms of his Protestant evangelicalism, and he brooked no

cause in taking on these issues. Do you think he will be remembered as

one of the men who stirred the troubles or who delivered peace? I

think he will be remembered by different people from the community

in different ways. He was a very complex character, but he will be

remembered fundamentally as a man who I believe said no when it was

right to say no, and he said yes when the time had come to say yes. I

wonder what he made of the independence referendum in Scotland?

Well, he hadn't expressed a view publicly on that but I know from my

close working with him over many, many years that he would have been

fundamentally and passionately in favour of our Scots kith and kin,

Ulster people have many connections with people in Scotland, remaining

inside the United Kingdom. He would have been passionate about that. And

I am sure it would have been one of his dying wishes to see the United

Kingdom preserved. Well Jonathan Powell was Tony Blair's Chief of

Staff and the British Government's lead negotiator in Northern Ireland

during the talks to secure the Good Friday Agreement. He joins us now

from Switzerland. First of all, what was Ian Paisley really like as a

negotiator? He was very effective. He was very hard, drove a very hard

bargain. And he got what he wanted, he settled for it, he was a

relatively easy person to negotiate with. He carried his side with him.

Sometimes unionist leaders had trouble doing that, but he could

always bring them with him. Did you know, you must have been aware and

you know you have a very detailed book about this whole process, you

must have been aware that the back channels were open between the DUP

and Sinn Fein through a lot of this time of negotiation? Yes, I mean on

the face of it we were shuttling backwards and forwards between two

parts that wouldn't meet. In fact they did have back channel meetings,

they didn't get very far in negotiating with those. There were

more to build confidence. Did you know in your heart of hearts that he

would never sign up to the Good Friday Agreement? I never expected

him to sign up to the Good Friday Agreement, and George Mitchell who

was a facilitator then said thank goodness he didn't participate in

the negotiations. He said if he hadn't participated we wouldn't have

got to the Good Friday Agreement. How did you deal with his attitudes

to Catholics, you heard the kind of language he used, what was he like

in private? In private he could be charming and very, very amusing, but

he did take a very hardline. He was not prepared for example to shake

hands with an Irish Prime Minister, until the very end of the St Andrews

talk, right at the very end. Bertie Ahearn presented him with a bowl

created with wood from the site of the battle of the Boyne, he was

emotional, he and his wife were there and they shook hand, that was

the first time he had shaken hands with an Irish Catholic Prime

Minister. For a start did you ever see him off his guard, was that a

moment you saw him off his guard do you think? I think that was an

emotional moment. He was an emotional man, and he reacted in an

emotional way from time to time. But he was a discipline negotiator and

that helps a facilitator if someone sticks to what they say they are

going to deliver. Do you get any sense that he regretted at any point

the bellicose way he dealt with things and his nature? I don't think

he looked back like that, he was always looking forward. But he did

have this transformation in 2004, he went into hospital and he came out a

really rather changed man both physically and mentally. He told

Tony Blair later that he had a close encounter with his maker, he nearly

died. On the back that have he changed his mind, he decided he

wanted to die as Dr Yes, not Dr No. After that moment in the

negotiations... That's interesting, that at that very moment he thought

he would die before there was peace? He thought he was going to die in

that hospital. When he came out he was determined to succeed in getting

to peace. And there after he was actually well ahead of his party. He

would be in meetings saying yes when the rest of the party was saying no.

And he was able to deliver them. And without him I'm not at all sure we

would have got to the St Andrews' agreement. When you look now at what

was achieved, do you think anyone other than Ian Paisley could have

achieved that? I think it was in the end essential to have people on, if

you like, the two extremes, to have Sinn Fein on one side and the DUP on

the other side. No-one could outflank them or attack a deal they

came to. That was crucial to getting to lasting peace, the peace we had

before proved to be fragile. And when you assessed the kind of

legacy, it is amazing when you actually look back at some of that

archive, because we haven't heard from Ian Paisley for such a while,

you forget how much we saw of that in the late 1970s and 1980sm and

people's views change. How do you think he will be remembered? I think

he will be remembered for both, both contributing to the start of the

troubles by his march on west Belfast to remove the tricolour from

the Sinn Fein office, and the end of the troubles at St Andrews, you

can't leave out both in rembering him. When you watch the way he

operated in Northern Ireland, when he sat down with Martin McGuinness,

and Martin McGuinness said tonight to all intents and purposes they

were joint leaders in Northern Ireland. When you look at the

relationship, it must be a psychologist's dream to look at that

relationship, what did you make of it? It was extraordinary from the

very first moment that they sat down together when we went for the

swearing in of the executive, from the very first moment they were

laughing on the sofa, made speeches that complimented each other. It was

an extraordinary transformation. Sometimes you have these cathartic

moment in peace processes, where people on is either side come

together to make it work. If Ian Paisley had not been in office that

first year I'm not sure the institutions and Northern Ireland

would have lasted. Times are difficult in Northern Ireland, there

are difficulties between the parties, he made it work to start

with. How will you remember him? I will remember him as someone who

could be very amusing, could be very difficult, could be very tough, and

someone who was very, very religious, right at the beginning

Tony Blair was told by Peter rob intone you have to build a

relationship with Ian Paisley if you are going to get to a peace

agreement. So Tony Blair went to great lengths to see him privately,

they used to talk in the den in Number Ten Downing Street, the two

of them, I would shut the door and listen outside and here chuckening,

laughter and voices raised, I would go in and expect something agreed on

the negotiation and text, instead we were talking about religion Grace. I

remember he left behind a religious tract for Leo, Tony Blair's son,

rather than the negotiating paper I hoped to see. A religious man and

driven by his faith, both in the things he did at the beginning,

which in my view were wrong, and those things he did at the end,

which were clearly right. In Iraq American air strikes have, for now,

halted the advance of the Islamic state. Ic State, and speaking in

Turkey today, John Kerry said he was confident that the US could build a

broad coalition of European and Arab countries. However he said it was

inappropriate for Iran to join that coalition. It is now clear he chose

his words carefully. Newsnight has learned that on the ground Iran

already appears to be sending troops and weapons into the conflict areas.

Gabriel Gatehouse has been to one town just recaptured from IS and has

sent this report. There is little left here of the

Iraqi state, of the sovereign, stable and self-reliant country that

America and her allies hoped to create. We're travelling towards the

frontline where an uneasy alliance of Kurdish forces and Shia militia

groups is battling Islamic State with support from American air

strikes. This is a Sunni town, recently

retaken after months under IS control. When the Shia militia

commander and his men entered the town they discovered a mass grave,

around 60 bodies, mostly Iraqi army soldiers, and truck drivers. They

had their hands tied and some had been beheaded. The smell of death

lingers in the air, and with it hatred and mistrust. One of the

problems here is that the local people of this town supported IS in

what they were doing? TRANSLATION: They ran away, they are not here.

Some of the locals worked with Islamic State. Will those people

ever be able to come back here and live? TRANSLATION: Impossible. The

key to President Obama's strategy is to drain the Sunni extremists of

Islamic State of local support by drawing moderates into a broad

coalition. But this town is deserted, even the Sunni mayor, who

pled IS in fear of his own life says it is too dangerous for him now to

be here in the presence of the Shia militia. You are afraid, why are you

afraid? TRANSLATION: I can't tell you now, he says. We will meet him

again later. One of the Shia militia groups invited us in for tea at

their forward base, just a few kilometres from the frontline. Their

members are by and large Iraqis, but the brigade is trained and funded by

Iran. They don't want to talk about that though. Without doubt it has

been American fire power in the skies that has done the most to halt

the advance of IS. But here, on the ground, it is not America but Iran

that is running the show and not just through their proxys, the Shia

militia. Few were willing to talk openly about the extent of Iran's

involvement in fighting Islamic state on the ground in Iraq. But one

Iraqi army officer, who wanted to remain anonymous for his own safety,

told us that Iranian forces were operating in large numbers alongside

Kurdish forces as well as Shia militia. TRANSLATION: They are in

charge of heavy weapons and artillery, locating the enemy and

shelling them, it is clear the weapons are from Iran. The Iranians

are all over this area, they control it now. You are saying that Iran in

effect controls this part of Iraq? TRANSLATION: They control everything

except the flag. Less than three years after American soldiers were

forced, reluctantly, to withdraw from Iraq, Iranian troops at their

proxies, appear to be taking their place. Moderate Sunnis find

themselves squeezed between the brutal Jihadists of Islamic State,

and the hostile Shia backed militia group. The Mayor of This town has

had to flee his home town, he says he and his people are forced to pick

sides. TRANSLATION: Everyone hates IS, but the enemy of my enemy is my

friend. Five of my brothers have been killed by Islamic State or

Al-Qaeda. But I would rather they won this war than the other side. We

travelled on to the latest frontline, just a few kilometres

west of the town and the site of the mass grave. IS fighters are holed up

just a few hundred metres away. As we are filming a shell lands in the

field in front of us. Then the sound of another being fired. Everyone

just dived for cover, because out of the blue we heard the whistle of

what sounded like a mortar coming from the Islamic State lines over

there. Everyone went face down into the dust. The shell landed some way

away, no-one was hurt. But there are daily battles here. This outpost is

controlled by the Kurds, the third force in the growing conflict

between Sunni and Shia. For the moment the Kurds are content to

fight IS alongside the Shia militia. But in the long-term they have their

own interests. Of The commander tells me it is Kurdish territory,

and they won't accept the presence of Shia militia here. The United

States sees little option but to support this unlikely alliance

against the Jihadists of Islamic State. But Iraq's divisions are

becoming ever-more entrenched and on the ground Iran's control grows

stronger by the day. Tonight Boris Johnson took on the

unlikely role of a supplicate seeking preferment, he went to

prostate himself in subject of the South Ruislip Conservative

Association in the hopes of seeking a seat in the general election. He

was expected face tough questions not least his preferring of a third

runway at Heathrow. Have you heard from Mr Cameron? Good night, sorry

to miss you on Newsnight. Allegra Stratton is there. They have gone

for him? David Cameron said they wanted their best men and women on

the pitch, Boris Johnson is on the bench and waiting. We understand it

was a fairly tough grilling, the four candidates had half an hour

each of Hustings, 140 people asking them questions, but one source tells

us he was head and shoulders above the rest, he should be really,

shouldn't he. He is not only an MP before but the Mayor of London. He

wanted to be on the pitch, and David Cameron wanted him on there, will he

not take David Cameron off the pitch, do you think? He might do at

some point. It is a difficult period for David Cameron, more so than I

think the Prime Minister thought it might have been about a month ago.

He thought he had his Tories in quite a good place. But they are

very restive, as you would expect about the possibility of having a

Prime Minister that presides over the collapse over the European. Even

if it doesn't collapse the idea of more powers to Scotland does not go

down well for the Tories. And then a Tory defection to UKIP, it means if

the Tories lose the next election it is game on for Boris Johnson, even

if they go in with David Cameron as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is now

sitting pretty. Thank you very much. In Scotland the latest poll

suggests that the referendum race is still too close to call. With an ICN

poll for the Guardian puts it neck and neck. We are in Glasgow tonight

and we will get up-to-date with the campaign this evening.

What's new? Just over in that direction an hour or two ago in the

Teachers' Hall, named not after the people who toil in classrooms but

whiskey, Nigel Farage addressed an enthusiastic audience. His message,

don't kid yourself Scotland, there is no such thing as independence if

Scotland remains within the EU. How much good that kind of intervention

from UKIP does in this close low-fought campaign, I'm not

entirely sure. But those numbers you were mentioning, 49 to the yes side,

51 for the no side in the latest ICM poll for the Guardian, there is

another figure in there that we should note. That is the headline

figure when you strip out those who don't know. The "don't knows"

according to that poll 17%. With six days to go everything to play for.

Aside from Nigel Farage, there is a lot of noise around these claims and

counter claims from business about what impact independence would have

for consumers? Exactly, and Alex Salmond spent much of the day trying

to counter that. He said this bullying takes by big business, big

Government and big oil. They are particularly insensed on the yes

side about an intervention by the Treasury, on Wednesday night we got

the news that RBS would plan to relocate their business out of

Scotland to London if there was a yes vote. Well, we learned today

that was communicated to a journalist by the Treasury before

even the board had made the official decision, before they had even

finished their meeting. Alex Salmond wants answers, he recognises, he

says a concerted dirty tricks campaign against the yes side. Now,

also, it sounds like the Better Together campaign are focussing on

the economic arguments and not really embracing this idea that

Scots are really heart felt members of the British Isles, it is a were.

You have been looking at where they stand in the British family and how

Britishness has been playing this week? Indeed, that is the case. I

think a lot of the foreign journalists who have arrived here

for this big new story, expected it to be carried out by Mel Gibson on

one side and people draped in the Union Jack on the other. It is

emphatically not that fight as you well know.

Call it the bulldog that didn't bark, but one theme hardly

referenced in this examine is Britishness. That might -- campaign

is Britishness. It might not be sensible to some, but it is perfect

sense in Scotland. Britishness has a good deal of difficulty identifying

as a modern contemporary identity rather than backward one. The idea

that Britishness has to be one thing, that is difficult to sell in

Scotland, it meant Britishness has become an oppositional identity.

That is not to say there are not Scots who strongly associate with

Britishness, but they will not represent more than had a proportion

even of those voting no. Tonight 's big no campaign event was Labour

one. And you won't hear passionate defences of Britishness here.

Instead a plea to continue a common struggle against a common enemy, the

Labour leader quote ago now dead communist Scottish trade unionists

to make his point. He said the Scottish worker has more in common

with the London docker, the Sheffield engineer, than the

Scottish baron and the Scottish landowner, that is solidarity. That

is what solidarity is all about. That is what nationalism, friends

that is what nationalism will never understand. That solidarity is what

unites our movement. Gordon Brown too spoke at the Labour event, about

Britishness as an inclusive identity was one of the pet themes of his

Premiership, although his crickets suggested this was really about

selling a very Scottish Prime Minister to very English voters. The

yes campaign contend that the inclusivity of Britishness is no

longer needed, today at a rather peculiar event, different

ethnicities, and nationalities were claimed their parallel Scottishness.

Angel describes herself as an English Scot. How English? She was

born to Scottish parents working at the time temporarily in England.

Britishness is not something that is being accepted, not just here in

Scotland, but also in the north of England and Wales and Ireland, we

just don't identify with that stereotype, you know. We are not

that, we are not roast beef, we are haggis. The Union Jack flies in

Glasgow still, but often it is linked to a specific unionist range

of supporting identity. At this Tavern, Jim Macduff tells me there

is a community that feels stigmatised and marginalised.

is a community that feels for being Scottish and British, then

you are traitor. Into this delicate cacophony of sometimes competing,

sometimes complimentry, sometimes overlapping identities, tonight

pitched the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, his message not so much a

hymn to Britain, but a warning to Scots not to believe that

independence is possible inside the EU. Alex Salmond talk about how

strong Scotland can be in the European Union. Let me tell you

Scotland will be a small and pretty irrelevant member-state of the

European Union. This referendum is not a referendum on Britishness

versus Scottishness, if it were it would have probably been decided

long ago. It is more a debate about where Scotland's best future lies,

inside or outside the UK. Here to discuss what the

independence debate with tell us about British next we have the film

director Ken Loach and broadcaster Echo with us.

You have the Better Together campaign flying the saltire in

Scotland, but you would think they would want to fly the Union Flag in

Scotland, and that is not acceptable, and the Scots were the

agents of empire? The context of Britishness is too woolly or vague,

it doesn't have a political point and the Britishness of ordinary

people, and the values of solidarity, of community, of

neighbourliness, of looking after your brother and sister, that's not

the values of the Bullingdon boys at the top of the establishment. So the

concept is too vague really to have any meaning politically. What does

being British mean to you? I think Britishness is an important concept,

I think Britishness is about a country, with lots of different

people, Britishness is about peculiarity, Britishness is about a

country which has been historically open in sometimes difficult ways to

all sorts of people from all parts of the world. But if Scotland wasn't

part of that Britain, would you still feel part of that Britain? I

actually think one of the issues is that politicians, especially in

England, less so in Scotland, especially in England, have made a

poor case for what Britishness can be. Under the Tory-led Government

politicians of all parties have actually retreated from making a

progressive case for Britain which, is to say that Britain is a better

place because of immigration and cultural mixing we have in this

country. You look at your film Spirit of 45, there was no greater

hype of Britishness then? And all the British achievements then have

been systematically destroyed and dismembered. Think about British

Rail, it is own by Germans, or Dutch people and run by them, our power

companies are owned by the French, and George Osborne is getting the

Chinese to invest in nuclear power. There is no great respect for the

Great British achievement. And the NHS is now the providers of the

services is being hived off to foreign healthcare companies. So

there is no great concern for the Great British institutions which we

established. Do you see yourself primarily as English or British?

Fundamentally I think of myself as British, which is to say I'm a

citizen of a country that is made up of many different people. I think

what is important about that is that I think our identity as British

people can be predicated not just on par as to what we have had, but on

the present. Ken Loach is saying there isn't a clear enough idea

about those things? All the good things in tolerance, in

inclusiveness, we have to fight for those. We have to fight for those

whether Scotland is part of this country or not. I hope the Scots

take the advantage and actually make a different kind of society, that is

what they are trying to do. They want a society of tolerance and

inclusiveness, and that is not the kind of society that the Farrages

and the Camerons are going to have in mind for us. Let's be honest,

UKIP has a small percentage of support in England? In Scotland. In

England? Well let's see. Part of the problem with all of this is it comes

in when you start discussing nationalism, which is that ideas of

nation tend to revolve around fixed ideas of what a country has been and

what a country should be, in fact if you think about nations, thriving,

progressive nations are places that reinvent themselves all the time.

Not absolutely but reinvent themselves based on the values they

have, but based on the opportunities that new people bring to those

countries. For you is it too late to reinvent Britishness? It is not too

late to make a decent society. How would you rekindle it? Whether it is

British, English or Welsh or whatever. That is not the point.

Britishness was about empire and slavery and oppression. Sense the

butcher's apron. Britishness has a long legacy which we want to disown.

When people come and are made welcome and we work together, that's

the kind of society we want. Could there be more effective ways in

Scotland of selling the idea of Britishness? Well yes, I think so. I

think the point is Britain in Scotland. Even if you are in

Scotland or England the notion of Britain has a country that is open

for possibility, as a country where the individuals in it, wherever they

come from, have an opportunity, possibly even an obligation to make

themselves heard, to make themselves part of what the country itself can

be. Not what it has been. I think you can frame what Britain is as a

place of genuine possibility, genuine progress, even hope, rather

than insisting that it is best and its true values lie only in the

past. This is a different kind of politics, it needs a different kind

of politics, based on common ownership, you have to have an

economic system that he will flect community and sharing and e--

reflect community and sharing and equality. Our Britishness is massive

equality, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We have

to have a different structure to make the Britishness you are talking

about. Thank you very much both of you. It was no surprise to you that

Oscar Pistorius of found guilty of culpable homicide, the parents of

Reeva Steenkamp had wanted a murder conviction, and he wept when ageted

of murder yesterday. -- acquitted of murder yesterday. Today he was

impassive as the judge delivered the verdict. How has South Africa felt

for being under the gaze of the world for this, rather than

something to be proud of? At the centre of a media frenzy, as

he has been since he fired those fatal rounds on Valentine's Day last

year, Oscar Pistorius was freed on bail after the best verdict he could

have hoped for. One that took many onlookers by surprise. Mr Pistorius

please stand up. On count 1, murder red with section 51 (1) of the

criminal law amendment act, 105 of 1997, the accused is found not

guilty and is discharged. Instead he's found guilty of culpable

homicide. State prosecutors said they would await sentencing before

considering an appeal. We are disappointed that we did not get or

secure a conviction on premeditated murder, and also that there was an

acquittal on the other two charges. But as I said, we are satisfied at

this point that you know the court has played its role. Pistorius's

uncle spoke on behalf of his family. We had never any doubt in Oscar's

version, we as a family remain deeply affected by the devastating

tragedy of the event. And it won't bring Reeva back, but our hearts

still go out for her family and friends. Famous, wealthy, with his

model girlfriend on his arm. Piss pitches one of South Africa's

favourite sons. Until he blasted the defenceless Reeva Steenkamp through

a toilet door through his apartment. The court accepted he hadn't meant

to kill her, but that he was negligent, shooting first at a

presumed intruder, he said, instead of calling for help. The prosecution

portrayed him as gun toting and trigger happy. Pistorius gave his

evidence off camera? I heard a noise coming from inside the toilet that I

interpreted at that split moment as coming out to attack me, my lady.

You just started shooting, or accidentally your fingers pulled the

trigger. I started shooting at that point. At the intruders. They door.

But in your mind, at the intruders? That is what I perceived as a

shooter coming out to attack me. The state's case seemed to echo the

words of an ex-girlfriend outside court, who said that Pistorius was

an accident waiting to happen. It is hard to remember that Oscar

Pistorius was once a celebrated athlete, the Blade Runner. The

poster boy for Paralympic sport. He even competed against able bodied

athletes at the London games two years ago. Incredibly a comeback at

the Rio Paralympics is not out of the question. If he served any

punishment given to him before Rio then the ball is in his court, if he

wants to compete then we wouldn't stand in his way. But there's the

little matter of his sentencing first. Miss Steenkamp's mother says

she has forgiven him, but the family's pain is raw. Only people

that have gone through this, will understand. It is easy for other

people to look in and see and listen and have their thoughts but only

once they have gone through it will they know what we feel. Pistorius is

at his uncle's home tonight, while his case raises uncomfortable

questions for South African society, such as sexism, domestic violence

and gun crime. Earlier I spoke to the South African journalist. The

eyes of the world are on South African but not for the right

reasons, how uncomfortable do South Africans feel about this? They are

uncomfortable that their golder boy has turned into this. South Africans

found Oscar guilty in the court of public opinion before he actually

walked into the dock. They are shocked on their findings of the

judge and I think they want to see him go to jail for a long time. That

is certainly the feeling I get there. They believe because he was

wealthy he got away with it. That it has become a license for men who

show violence to women. There are even many who say this is a racist

decision. Although Judge Thokozile Masipa is a black judge. Is that the

view across all sections of South African society? Yes, a very widely

held view, here in Pretoria where Oscar Pistorius lived and went to

school, there is a very hard kernal of support for him, people walking

around wearing the old school tie for his school. There is that if you

went into a pub in Pretoria and said something about Oscar you would pick

up trouble. Widely the belief is he was guilty and there is some shock

disappointment and anger at the findings of the judge. That is

interesting, because what you seem to be suggesting is that if all

sections of society, black and white, are united, that is an

interesting unity? Very much so, but I mean the victim was a white woman,

and people saying this beautiful white woman's life was taken nobody

has paid yet. That is why I think the hope is there is no murder

charge, but there will be a lengthy prison sentence handed down

mid-October. You know Oscar Pistorius well, you MC'd the launch

of his book, how will he be taking all of this. What will he be

thinking just now as they prepare the appeal? The court heard about

the two Oscars, the champion, the athlete, who overcomes great odds

and the very, very vulnerable person who feels anxiety and is terribly,

terribly aware of his limitations as a disabled person. I think what we

are seeing now is a hugely relieved Oscar, he wept with relief yesterday

when the murder charges were dropped. There is some anticipation

about the culpable homicide charge. He comes from a moneyed family, and

certainly his uncle won't allow any custodial sentence to go unappealed.

This will run and run. If a custodial sentence is handed down

mid-October, it will go to the appeals, it will go all the way to

the constitutional court. It will be some years before Oscar Pistorius,

if indeed he does ever walk through a Prisongate. Thank you very much

for joining us tonight. That's about it for tonight. It is also the last

night of the Newsnight Proms, our series of live previews of the BBC

Prom, we wemt with a South African lyric soprano singing Puccini's O

Mio Babbino Caro. If outdoor plans for the weekend are

for you it is a good