Pretoria police would not confirm the man’s identity until he appears in court, adding a 9mm pistol was recovered from the scene and a case of murder is being investigated.

Officers are still busy with preliminary investigations at the scene, and statements are being taken from neighbours on the luxury Silver Woods estate.

Police say the couple were the only people in the home at the time, there was no sign of forced entry and said the claim that Pistorius had thought his girlfriend was an intruder had not come from them.

In 2009 Pistorius spent a night in police cells after a woman complained to police that he had assaulted her during a party at his house.

The incident allegedly occurred at the same Silver Woods home as where Miss Steenkamp died.

Although Pistorius was charged with assault, he was eventually released with a warning.

At the time, police spokeswoman Sergeant Marinda Stoltz said the victim, whom Pistorius had told to leave, banged and kicked his front door.

‘He (Pistorius) told the girl ‘this is my house and my friends and you have to leave’. He then started closing the door when a wooden beam weighing about 1,5kg fell on her leg and injured her.’

She said the girl reported the incident hours later. ‘The girl then also admitted that she had been drinking,’ said Stoltz.

Homes there are surrounded by a giant wall, with electric fences and armed guards who stop every vehicle leaving or entering to keep it secure in a country with high rates of violent crime.

Around 50 people every day are murdered in South Africa and it is common for people to keep weapons in their home.

In an interview with the Mail before London 2012 it was revealed Pistorius slept with a pistol next to his bed, a machine gun by a window with a cricket bat and baseball bat behind the door.

‘The problem is when the guards are in on the crime. It’s usually safe in guarded estates like this until that happens,’ he said.

In a later piece for the New York Times he took a reporter to the local shooting range to fire his 9mm handgun and two boxes of ammunition.

When the journalist hit the bullseye he said: ‘If you practiced, I think you could be pretty deadly,’ adding he would go shooting ‘sometimes when I can’t sleep’.

Arnu Fourie, Pistorius’s roommate during London 2012 said today: ‘My heart is broken for Oscar’.

‘I feel for Oscar and the girl’s family, I pray for him and her family, I can not imagine how they feel.

‘Poor Oscar in his life had so many disappointments and tough times’.