The BBC has removed a trailer for a new documentary about Oscar Pistorius after criticism that it did not name his murder victim Reeva Steenkamp.

Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison for killing Steenkamp, his girlfriend, in his home in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2013. His sentence was later increased to 15 years, minus time already served.

After the trailer was released, domestic abuse campaigner David Challen wrote: "A total failure to even name the woman he killed. Shame on the BBC." He also criticised the broadcaster for describing it as a "remarkable documentary series" in the press release.

The two-minute trailer indicated that the four-part documentary would look at the rise and fall of the athlete, nicknamed the blade runner.

While there were glimpses of Steenkamp in photographs and a video, plus a brief shot of domestic violence campaigners, there were only two mentions of the victim in the trailer.

The documentary will be on the BBC iPlayer from 7 November, and broadcast on BBC Two at a later date.BBC Announces New Drama Series About Jimmy Savile

Why on earth should the beeb have made this documentary in the first place is beyond me.

The documentary was commissioned for US network ESPN, but will be broadcast by the BBC in the UK.

This docuseries could have asked bigger questions on domestic violence, or the murder of Pistorius’s scarcely mentioned girlfriend. Instead, it is a flawed, fawning hagiography

Over five hours and 40 minutes, we get an exhaustive, exhausting account of Pistorius’s childhood, his medical history – born with fibular hemimelia, his feet were amputated at 11 months to give him the best overall mobility – his schooling, the death of his mother when he was 16, his training, his genuinely remarkable sporting achievements. We are offered a look at the growing adoration of South Africa for its golden boy as he racks up sprinting medals around the world, his successes at the Paralympics and his fight for permission to compete in the Olympics. The tone of these parts is hagiographic, which means the other parts – the darker parts, the more awkward parts – are edged with a kind of baffled sorrow. How, the film seems to ask, could all this glory fall away?

What could have been an examination of the cultural convergence that makes South Africa one of the most dangerous places for women to live – a woman is killed by her partner there every eight hours – instead amounts to little more than a head shake over one man’s bad luck.

Pistorius is the result of a society that treats women as second-class citizens, that lets men off the vast majority of the terrible things they do to them, that tells them money, talent and success will earn them yet greater freedom to do as they wish to whomever they wish.

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