COMEDIAN John Cleese has been branded “disgusting” after tweeting a sick joke about Paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s murder charge.
The South African, 26, nicknamed Blade Runner, is currently in custody after reportedly shooting his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the middle of the night after mistaking her for a burglar.
The Fawlty Towers star tweeted his 2.5 million followers: “Oscar’s defence will be that he was absolutely legless at the time”.
Within minutes his joke was quickly branded “disgusting”, “sick” and “disrespectful”.
One Twitter follower, Thurlie, hit out at the comedian, writing: “That was distasteful and disrespectful. A woman lost her life.”
Kellie Hill agreed, writing: “Someone’s daughter is dead, I fail to see how that is amusing to anyone.”
Gill McCain said: “Bad taste and not even remotely funny.”
John Allers was also un-amused, tweeting: “There is a victim and their family. Think of them. But in times like this we see the true character of a person. Sick.”
Martin Dalamini added: “A little sensitivity please someone did die and another is facing a murder charge in case u didn’t notice.”
Some of his followers saw the funny side though, with Tom Wright tweeting: “If you don’t like that type of joke then I would avoid using any form of social networking site for a few days.”
Another user, called Rebecca agreed, writing: “If John Cleese jokes about it, then it’s Ok.”
Oscar Pistorius’s 26, is widely known as the Blade Runner, and has also been dubbed ‘the fastest man on no legs’.
The Johannesburg athlete, who was born without fibulas in his legs and had the limbs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old, had to win a legal battle over his blades with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 2008 for the right to compete in able-bodied competition.
He was the first double amputee to run in the able-bodied Olympics and reached the 400 semi-finals in London 2012.
