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South Africa’s highest court has rejected Oscar Pistorius’s right to appeal against his conviction for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

The Constitutional Court ruled the Paralympian had no reasonable grounds of success with his legal fight.

Pistorius now faces a possible minimum 15-year jail sentence after he was convicted of deliberately gunning down his lover on Valentine’s Day three years ago.

The athlete has been on bail since December when the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) found him guilty of murder after overturning his earlier conviction on the lesser charge of culpable homicide.

Pistorius’s lawyers had applied for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, arguing that the SCA had ‘acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally’.

But the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which opposed the application, said today that the appeal attempt had failed.

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National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku said: ‘The court dismissed the application for leave to appeal because there are are no prospects of success.’

Pistorius now faces a possible minimum 15-year jail sentence after he was convicted of deliberately gunning down his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp (pictured) at his home in Pretoria on Valentine’s Day three years ago. Mfaku said the court’s decision had been made on Wednesday.

Pistorius, 29, is due to attend a sentencing hearing on April 18.

The double-amputee killed Miss Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he shot four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.