Pistorius' mansion parole will be nothing like his time inside notorious Atteridgeville prison

Reeva Steenkamp's mother acknowledged Oscar Pistorius' right to be released under South African law, ITV News' Emma Murphy reports

Oscar Pistorius' secretive journey this morning, made hours before the sun rose over Pretoria, was only a few miles long.

But life on parole at the suburban mansion where he will spend most of his time on parole, will be nothing like his time inside the notorious Atteridgeville prison.

He knows his new setting well.

The house owned by his Uncle Arnold, with its expansive garden and hillside views across the district of Waterkloof, is where he spent his time under house arrest.

And rather than the ever-changing selection of inmates, few of whom saw him as 'just another prisoner', he will have a tight knit family network of aunts, uncles, and cousins around him.

Life will in almost every sense be far more comfortable for Pistorius - except, perhaps, for the fact he is no longer shielded from public opinion.

In several conversations with ITV News before he began his jail term, he said he understood the anger towards him felt by many people.

His is a lightning rod case which has touched on almost all of South Africa's societal ills - inequality, violence against women, high rates of crime, the fear of home invasions, police failures.

Some government officials don't want to stoke the debate and resent the amount of attention the case has generated - the fact that it's Pistorius being discussed today rather than, say, South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

So, Pistorius' wish to keep a low profile may well be welcomed by the South African authorities. There's a reason his release from prison took place in the middle of the night.

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