Johannesburg: They are called the Pistorians. And as their hero began his trial for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Monday, they are keen to tell the world that the shooting of Oscar Pistorius’ girlfriend was, in his words, a “devastating accident”.

On the strength of the evidence made public so far, it might seem that such a verdict would be an unlikely outcome, but for many of the athlete’s fans, that would be the only just result.

The trial that will grip South Africa is expected to last up to six weeks. After an application by a cable television station, much of the court proceedings will be televised, raising inevitable comparisons with the 1994 trial of OJ Simpson, the American footballer who was tried and acquitted of murdering his wife and her alleged lover at her Los Angeles home.

Like Pistorius, Simpson had fanatical supporters who refused to consider him capable of such grievous acts. But the trial at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria is the first case with a similarly high profile in the age of Twitter and social media, with every minute and hour of coverage subjected to unprecedented scrutiny, comment and online chatter.

Featuring prominently throughout will be the Pistorians, who took their name from the Twitter hashtag they used in the early days after the arrest of Pistorius for the model’s shooting on February 14 last year.

Unfair trial

They believe that Pistorius, 27, is a “decent human being” and has been subjected to unfair trial by public opinion. They show their support by tweeting messages of hope and love to the world’s most famous Paralympic athlete, discussing aspects of the evidence in Facebook forums and, periodically, attacking those who suggest his actions have been anything but honourable.

A website, Support for Oscar, has been created by one group of fans, on which poems, drawings, prayers, photo collages and letters written by supporters, along with pictures of Oscar with needy children and during happier days, such as his ground-breaking run with able-bodied athletes at the London 2012 Olympics.

The messages come principally, but not solely, from women, and from all over the world. One supporter has described herself as “like an angry lioness” in defence of her idol. Another has changed her Twitter profile picture to a version of the stoic British wartime “Keep calm” slogan so it follows “and trust in Barry Roux”, Pistorius’s bulldog-like defence lawyer.

Katie Baldwin, 22, a scientific research assistant from the Midlands, is among those who consider themselves to be the runner’s most dedicated supporters and believe wholeheartedly in his insistence that he shot Steenkamp believing she was a burglar. She insists that the Pistorians are not “weird loners or obsessives”, but rational, evidence-driven observers who refuse to be blinded to Pistorius’ nobler qualities by the glare of the past year’s tumultuous events.

“We’re just a group of real people with real lives who coalesced naturally when we took to social media looking for information about what happened, and support. We want to show the world we still believe in him and the concept of innocent until proven guilty,” she said. “We’re not looking for contact with him or expect anything from him, we’re just doing what we believe is right.”