LATEST: Oscar Pistorius sentenced to five years in prison, may be free after 10 months

Oscar Pistorius may be free within months after tonight being sentenced to five years in jail.

The former Olympian showed a rare lack of emotion as his fate for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was delivered by South African Judge Thokozile Masipa.

He was sentenced to five years in prison for culpable homicide, of which he will have to serve at least one-sixth before he is eligible for parole. It could see him released within 10 months.

Ms Steenkamp's mother, June, has told media she will never have closure on her daughter's death.

"Unless you can magic Reeva back," she said.

A lawyer for the Steenkamp family has been reported saying "justice was served" and "the right sentence" had been delivered.

In her summary today, Judge Masipa lashed witnesses who appeared for Pistorius and said she had developed a "feeling of unease" from evidence that placed "what I thought was an overemphasis on the accused's vulnerability”.

"Yes the accused is vulnerable but he also has excellent coping skills," the judge told the court.

"Thanks to his mother, he rarely saw himself as disabled and excelled as a top athlete."

Judge Masipa said a non-custodial sentence for the Valentine’s Day shooting would send the “wrong message to the community”.

Pistorius was also sentenced to three years' imprisonment wholly suspended for five years in relation to a firearm offence he was found guilty of last month.

It is reported Pistorius will not appeal his sentence, despite the defence team calling for house arrest and community service, while prosecutors argued for a 10-year jail term.

During sentencing, Judge Masipa specifically criticised one of Pistorius' witnesses, a probation officer whose evidence she described as "disturbing".

Judge Masipa said prisons in South Africa would be more than capable of catering for a disabled inmate should Pistorius receive a custodial sentence, despite the probation officer's evidence to the contrary.

She said the probation officer used "outdated information" and her evidence was "slap-dash, disappointing, and had a negative impact on her credibility as a witness".

Her evidence was "sketchy, outdated, uninformed, generalised, and negatively biased towards prisons in this country".

"I found her evidence perfunctory, unhelpful ... something quite disturbing from someone with 28 years’ experience," Judge Masipa said.