PARALYMPIC superstar Oscar Pistorius was today charged with murder after allegedly shooting his girlfriend dead in the middle of the night.

Reeva Steenkamp, 30, a former FHM model who had been dating the 26-year-old for two months, was shot four times in the head, chest and arm inside his mansion in Pretoria, South Africa at 4am.

The athlete may have killed her with a handgun kept next to his bed after a Valentine’s Day surprise went tragically wrong and he thought she was a burglar, sources have said.

But police say her death is being treated as murder, adding that officers had been sent to previous incidents of a ‘domestic nature’ at his address on the exclusive Silver Woods gated estate.

Brigadier Denise Beukes added police were ‘very surprised’ by the intruder suggestion, telling reporters: ‘These allegations did not come from us.’

Pistorius was due in court this afternoon but the hearing has now been delayed to 7am and the sprinter is in custody.-www.dailymail.co.uk