The pair had been arguing after the 27-year-old Paralympian accused his girlfriend of flirting with another man at an engagement party.

In the message on January 27 last year -18 days before her death – Seenkamp wrote: "I'm scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and of how you react to me."

In another message she wrote: "I can't be attacked by outsiders for dating you and be attacked by you - the one person I deserve protection from."

The message was revealed by police captain Francois Moller, who was testifying about the phones belonging to the couple.

He said he had been able to extract around 35,000 pages of messages from Steenkamp's phone.

The vast majority of the messages were positive, he said, but he highlighted some exceptions.

Captain Francois Moller gives evidence on what he found after analysing the phones of Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp ©AFP/Getty Images



Pistorius has said he and Steenkamp were in a loving relationship prior to her death.

The athlete denies deliberately killing his girlfriend at his Pretoria home on February 14 last year.

Earlier, as the fourth week of the trial began after a two-day break at the end of last week, a neighbour of Pistorius took the stand to testify she had heard a man and woman scream on the night of the shooting.

In an echo of testimony given by other neighbours earlier in the trial, Anette Stipp - whose husband has already given evidence - said she heard gunshots and screams at around 3am.

She told the court she heard two groups of gunshots with a woman's screams in between.

Stipp insisted it was a woman's screams she had heard, countering assertions by the defence that the screams were those of Pistorius.

The prosecution is expected to close its case this week.

Pistorius is expected to take the stand when the defence case opens.

Yesterday, the Pretoria court hearing the evidence said the trial will be extended to May 16, having originally been scheduled to take three weeks.

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