Oscar Pistorius jailed for six years for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp

Pistorius killed his girlfriend in 2013, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet

Double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was today sentenced to six years in jail for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago.

"The sentence that I impose on the accused... Is six years imprisonment," judge Thokozile Masipa told the High Court in Pretoria.

The double-amputee killed Reeva Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

In March, Pistorius's lawyers failed in their legal bid to reverse a Supreme Court of Appeal judgement that upgraded his original conviction from culpable homicide — the equivalent of manslaughter — to murder.

Pistorius was released from jail last October to live under house arrest at his uncle's mansion in Pretoria after serving one year of his five-year sentence for culpable homicide.

Since being convicted of murder, Pistorius has been on bail and allowed to leave the house at set times, but not travel further than 20 kilometres (12 miles) without permission.

Pistorius has always denied killing Steenkamp in a rage and, during his dramatic seven-month trial in 2014, sobbed in the dock as details of his lover's death were examined in excruciating detail.

Pistorius has shunned the media during years of intense coverage since Steenkamp's killing, but his family have revealed that he has given his first interview, due to air on British broadcaster ITV later this month.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at Olympic level when he appeared at the London 2012 games.

He has since lost his glittering sports career, lucrative contracts and status as a global role model for the disabled.