Oscar Pistorius has been denied parole following an appeal hearing in front of the Department of Corrections ©Getty Images

Oscar Pistorius has been denied parole and will remain in jail for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013.

The South African, 36, who has served half his sentence for shooting Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013, was hoping to be freed today but will now have to re-apply in a year’s time following the decision by the Department of Corrections.

Before the hearing, Reeva's mother June said Pistorius was "not remorseful or rehabilitated."

Pistorius shot Reeva, his girlfriend of two months, four times, through a locked bathroom door with the nine millimetres pistol he kept under his bed.

The prosecution said she had gone there to escape him following the argument while Pistorius insisted he didn't hear her get out of bed and mistook her for a burglar.

It was later revealed that Pistorius - nicknamed Blade Runner as he competed on twin prosthetics after having both legs amputated below the knee due to a birth defect - had been a gun fanatic who once fired a gun in a restaurant and had 10 weapons, including an AK-47.

The Parole Board considered his conduct and disciplinary record in prison, his participation in educational or other training courses during the last decade of incarceration, and his mental and physical state to assess whether Pistorius would still pose a threat to public safety.

Steenkamp's mother read a statement at the Parole Board, in a room separate from the killer, to voice her and her husband’s opposition to Pistorius being granted early parole.

"Unless he comes clean, they don’t feel that he is rehabilitated," Reeva's lawyer Tania Koen told reporters before the hearing outside the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison in Pretoria where Pistorius has been incarcerated since 2016.

Multiple Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius has had his application for parole turned down ©Getty Images
Multiple Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius has had his application for parole turned down ©Getty Images

She continued: "He’s the killer of their daughter.

"For them, it’s a life sentence."

Pistorius was last up for parole in 2021, but that request was denied on technical grounds as he had not met with Steenkamp's family as required under South Africa's parole rules.

Barry Steenkamp then met face-to-face with Pistorius last year in what is known in South Africa as a victim-offender dialogue.

Last month, on the tenth anniversary of his daughter's murder, he told the Daily Mail: "He is a murderer.

"He should remain in jail.

"I told Oscar directly that he had shot my daughter deliberately and he denied it.

"He stuck to his story that he thought it was an intruder.

"After all these years we are still waiting for him to admit he did it in anger.

Pistorius shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp multiple times after believing that she was a burglar ©Getty Images
Pistorius shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp multiple times after believing that she was a burglar ©Getty Images

"That is all we wanted.

"If he told me the truth.

"I would have let the law take its course over his parole."

Pistorius was initially sentenced to six years in jail but the term was later lengthened to 13 after the state appealed that it was unduly lenient.

He won six Paralympic titles between 100 and 400 metres at the Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Paralympic Games.

After an extended legal battle he earned the right to compete against able-bodied athletes.

At the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu Pistorius became the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal as a member of the silver medal-winning South African 4x400m relay team.

The following year, in London, he became the first double-leg amputee participant at the Olympics.