Army sergeant Emile Cilliers is pictured arriving at Winchester Crown court charged with attempted murder of his wife
An army sergeant sent a flurry of saucy text messages to his lover the day after tampering with his wife’s parachute to send her plummeting 4,000ft to the ground, a court head today.
While Victoria Cilliers lay in hospital, Emile Cilliers, who is accused of trying to murder her, was messaging his lover telling her he liked ‘nude cleaners’ and asking if she would refer to him as ‘Mr Grey’.
Cilliers, 37, sent love messages to Stefanie Goller, who he met on Tinder in November 2014, and continued to plan a life with her as Mrs Cilliers was waiting for surgery.
Jurors at Winchester Crown Court were today shown thousands of text messages between Cilliers and Miss Goller about how they wanted to spend their lives together.
In two messages four months before the incident, Cilliers tells Miss Goller, who was in the United States: ‘I will sacrifice and give up so much for you… I just never want to let you go.’
Another, a month later reads: ‘To be with you, I would do anything.’
Then on April 5, 2015, army physiotherapist Mrs Cilliers plummeted to the ground at Netheravon airfield after her main and reserve parachute failed.
She spun helplessly following the 4,000ft jump but miraculously survived the fall thanks in part to a freshly ploughed field and her light weight but broke her pelvis, ribs and fractured her vertebra.
It is alleged Cilliers, who serves with the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, removed two vital pieces of equipment called slinks from his wife’s parachute.
Army sergeant Cilliers is seen marrying his wife Victoria in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2011
The trial was shown a video demonstrating how it could be done in a toilet cubicle in just over five minutes (pictured)
Emile Cilliers and wife Victoria Cilliers on their wedding day in South Africa (left). Shown right, defense barrister Elizabeth Marsh looks at a main parachute at Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire
On the same day of the fall, Cilliers messaged Miss Goller: ‘I can’t imagine anything like that happening to you. I think about you all the time.’
He told Miss Goller that his 40-year-old wife would be likely to walk with a limp for the rest of her life as a result of her injuries.
The very next day Miss Goller messaged explaining she is cleaning to earn some extra money and Cilliers said: ‘Will you be my cleaner? I only like nude house cleaners. I pay with hugs and kisses.’
When Miss Goller tells Cilliers she loves him in uniform, he replies: ‘You going onto [sic] salute me?’
And in reply to her message ‘I guess sometimes I will have to obey you’, Cilliers said: ‘Will you call me your Mr Grey?’
The court heard that around three months before the incident Cilliers and Miss Goller had gone for a weekend away together in the Czech Republic.
Cilliers is said to have started an affair with Stefanie Goller (pictured) after meeting her on Tinder and allegedly tried to kill his wife for £120,000 insurance money
Mrs Cilliers, pictured on another skydive, suffered multiple serious injuries in the fall in 2015
Cilliers ‘deliberately removed vital pieces of equipment intending that she should be killed when the reserve parachute inevitably failed’, the court was told
Around a month later Mrs Cilliers messaged her husband saying she felt he was ‘trying to push her away’.
Mrs Cilliers wrote: ‘I have loved u (sic) more each year. Feels like you keep trying to push me away until I jump ship.
‘But I can’t. I love you too much. It feels just now that you would be happier without me.’
Texts around the same time revealed Cilliers was sending Miss Goller poems.
In one exchange, Cilliers and Miss Goller both say ‘I love you’ to each other.
Cilliers said: ‘I fricken megadore you… I have lots of time for you and I am also willing I put as much work into this as needed to make this the best relationship ever… I can honestly say I have never felt like this before. I love you.’
Jurors were also shown saucy messages sent to Cilliers’ ex-wife, Carly, who he also had an affair with.
A picture shows an inspection of Victoria Cilliers’ parachute following the incident
Evidence shown in court reveals the gas valve that is alleged to have been adjusted by Cilliers
Cilliers said to her: ‘So tonight… We fuck twice…’
Cilliers is accused of tampering with Mrs Cilliers’ parachute following a failed attempt to try and kill her a few days earlier at their home in Amesbury, Wilts, by damaging a gas valve in a bid to cause an explosion.
The day before Mrs Cilliers smelt the gas in the kitchen, Cilliers and Miss Goller had been sending sexual messages to each other.
He said: ‘Your body against mine and the soft touch of your skin. Kissing your neck stroking your body. Gently biting your neck muscles while all the time touching you where it makes you quiver.’
On March 30, 2015, after Mrs Cilliers finds the damaged gas valve, she messages her husband and ‘jokingly’ accuses him of trying to kill him.
In messages read out in court, she said: ‘Did you alter the gas lever into the cooker. It’s in the cupboard. Smell gas in the cupboard this am and dry blood around the lever!’
He replied: ‘Nope That’s weird! Is the stove working?’
Trial judge Mr Justice Sweeney, right, and prosecution barrister Michael Bowes, QC, left, are pictured inspecting a 149 reserve parachute similar to the one used by Mrs Cilliers
Cilliers (pictured) allegedly collected a parachute for his wife and during the afternoon took it into the men’s toilets at the base, which is when the prosecution claim he tampered with it
The court heard Mrs Cilliers messaged to say she is too scared to check if the stove is working but instead airs out the kitchen.
Cilliers later said: ‘Hey. You also can’t be serious about the comment you made. You have been saying that a lot recently. Why?’
Mrs Cilliers said: ‘Of course not! Just an article I read in a mag recently.. Brought it to front of my mind. True life reader stories. My husband tried to kill me.
‘I was only making a joke. It was the blood on the handle. Wasn’t being serious. Didn’t realise I’d said it a lot.’
Winchester Crown Court has heard Cilliers, who had around £22,000 of debts and had started an affair after meeting Stefanie Goller, on Tinder, believed he would receive £120,000 life insurance as a result of Mrs Cilliers’ death.
It’s alleged South African-born Cilliers tampered with both her main and reserve parachutes before storing them in a locker the night before she made the jump.
He denies two counts of attempted murder and one charge of criminal damage reckless as to whether it endangered life.
The trial continues tomorrow.
The site near to Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire where Victoria Cilliers landed
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