The wife of an Army sergeant accused of trying to murder her cut him out of her will before he tampered with her parachute and caused a gas leak in their house, a court heard today.
Emile Cilliers of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps is accused of attempting to kill his wife, Victoria Cilliers on two occasions in 2015.
Today Mrs Cilliers gave evidence for the first time at Winchester Crown Court and revealed she decided to leave everything to their children in 2014.
She told Winchester Crown Court that she was ‘insecure’ because she had found out her husband was unfaithful and said he was also ‘bad with money’.
She said: ‘I’m an intelligent person who knew what was going on. I regretted walking out of my first marriage too soon and I owed it to myself and my children not to make any rash decisions’.
But she told the jury that unless he ‘shaped up’ she had planned to throw him out.
Emile Cilliers of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps is accused of attempting to kill his wife, Victoria Cilliers (pictured today) on two occasions
Emile Cilliers and wife Victoria Cilliers on their wedding day in South Africa (left). Shown right, defence barrister Elizabeth Marsh looks at a similar parachute at Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire
Her husband accused of trying to murder the 40-year-old by removing vital ‘slinks’ from her parachute before she went on a 4,000ft skydive on April 5, 2015.
On March 30 he had attempted to murder the Army physiotherapist by tampering with a gas pipe to trigger an explosion at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, it is claimed.
On Monday a court heard he had tampered with the gas fitting in a kitchen cupboard at the home he shared with his wife.
The trial at Winchester Crown Court has heard that Mrs Cilliers, 40, from Haddington, East Lothian, reported smelling gas at the property.
Her husband had spent the previous night at his barracks because he said he wanted to avoid the Monday morning traffic.
An engineer called to the property found a loose nut on a gas isolation valve in a cupboard next to the oven.
The court has heard that dried blood found on the pipe was a match for Cilliers.
Forensic scientist Mark Kearsley told the court that he had carried out a microscopic examination of the nut and a set of mole-grip adjustable locking pliers owned by the sergeant.
Cilliers has said he used the pliers to try to tighten the nut when he had returned home before the gas engineer arrived, but could not do so because it was too tight.
Mr Kearsley said impressions left on the nut were a ‘conclusive’ match for the markings of the pliers but they had been used in a ‘loosening and not tightening motion’. He added that a ‘significant’ degree of force was used.
Two slinks, which attach the lines of the canopy to the rest of the rigging, were missing from one side of the parachute, the court heard, preventing it from working correctly. Pictured: Images show the use of slinks, also known as S-Links, on a chute
Prosecutors said that on forensic examination, the nut (left) revealed tool marks matching mole grips (right) seized from a toolbox locked in the utility room
The top arrow shows damage to a nut made by a pair of pliers found in a toolbox located in the utility room of Cilliers’s home
Gas engineer Michael Osborne said he was called to the Cilliers’ home on March 30 to make the gas leak safe.
He pinpointed the ‘small leak’ to a nut on a gas fitting in a cupboard next to the oven in the kitchen and he was able to fix it by tightening the nut by a ‘quarter-turn maximum’.
He said it was not unusual to find such a leak and explained that as well as a tool, the nut could have become loosened or ‘relaxed’ by repeated changes in temperature or by being knocked by food tins being placed in the cupboard.
Gas safety consultant Howard Reed said he inspected the property and found the valve was not faulty.
Jurors were shown thousands of texts between Cilliers and his lover Stefanie Goller, whom he met on dating app Tinder, in the months before the skydiving incident in April 2015 and in the days after.
On the day of the fall he wrote: ‘Sorry can’t talk right now. Vicky has had an accident.’ Later in the same conversation, as his wife was having surgery, he said: ‘What we have is far more special … One day we might have a family of our own.’
Miss Goller later said she was working as a cleaner, to which he said: ‘Will you be my cleaner? I only like nude cleaners.’ Miss Goller said, ‘I like naked cooking’, and he replied: ‘You’ll end up being distracted by me and burn the cooking.’
The night before the gas leak, Cilliers had sent Miss Goller texts fantasising about ‘the soft touch of your skin’ and ‘kissing your neck, stroking your body’. Half an hour earlier, he texted his ex-wife Carly, 38, with whom he was also having an affair, saying: ‘So tonight we f*** twice.’
Mrs Cilliers, pictured on another skydive, suffered multiple serious injuries in the fall in 2015
The court previously heard Cilliers had text his ‘lover’ Stefanie Goller, pictured, while his wife was being treated in hospital and was ‘continuing to plan a life with her’
The jury heard Cilliers was involved in a sexual relationship with ex-wife Carly Cilliers (above)
Jurors were also shown exchanges between Cilliers and his wife. A few weeks after the accident, he wrote: ‘I will need money soon or I can’t do shopping. I have no money left.’
Texts also revealed their marriage problems in the months before.
After he returned from a trip to Austria in January, she wrote: ‘It was a massive blow to realise you came back a different person. You seemed so detached.’ Meanwhile Cilliers was texting Miss Goller about how he wanted to spend his life with her, the court heard.
In February, after Cilliers returned from a holiday with Miss Goller, his wife texted him: ‘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.’
Mrs Cilliers survived her fall thanks to a single thread on her parachute but spent three weeks in hospital with a broken pelvis, ribs and vertebrae. Her husband denies two counts of attempted murder and one of reckless criminal damage.
Cilliers denies two counts of attempted murder and one of reckless criminal damage.
The trial continues.
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