Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was sick in court after a photograph of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp's dead body was accidentally shown during the athlete's murder trial.

On day nine of the trial at the High Court in Pretoria, images of the bathroom where Steenkamp was shot dead by Pistorius were scrolled through on screens around the courtroom.

During these proceedings, Pistorius began retching and looked distressed when an image of the South African model's blood-covered body appeared for a fraction of a second on the screen.

Reports have claimed that Steenkamp's mother Desi Myers had earlier left the court in tears when photographs of Pistroius's blood-stained bathroom were shown.

The 27-year-old's defence lawyer Barry Roux has spent the majority of the morning cross-examining forensic analyst Lt Col Johannes Vermuelen, who claimed yesterday that Pistorius would not have been wearing his prosthetic legs while breaking down the bathroom door with a cricket bat.

This version of events contradicts Pistorius's previous statement, in which he claimed that he returned to his bedroom to put on his prosthetic legs after firing four gunshots through the bathroom door.

The Paralympian denies murder by maintaining that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he fired the shots on Valentine's Day last year.