A sex mad army sergeant who cheated on his and then tried to murder her to snaffle her £120,000 life insurance was jailed for life today.
Emile Cilliers will serve a minimum of 18 years for trying to gas his wife Victoria at home before he tampered with her parachute sending her plummeting from 4,000ft three days later in 2015.
Mrs Cilliers was at Winchester Crown Court to see him sentenced for two counts of attempted murder.
She somehow survived the fall and has said since he is a ‘kind and loving’ man, has refused to accept he did it and has admitted she has no plans to divorce him.
![Victoria Cilliers arrives at WInchester Crown Court to see her husband jailed for twice trying to kill her](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/15/11/4D417DA100000578-0-image-m-6_1529056987654.jpg)
Victoria Cilliers arrives at WInchester Crown Court to see her husband jailed for twice trying to kill her and he was given 18 years today
![Cilliers was cheating on his wife and wanted to get hold of her life insurance money to start a new life](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/15/11/4D417DA500000578-5847735-image-a-19_1529057329591.jpg)
Cilliers was cheating on his wife and wanted to get hold of her life insurance money to start a new life
Emile CIlliers first tried to gas his wife with their children in the house but the smell alerted her to the danger and she later jokingly texted him to say: ‘Are you trying to kill me?!’.
Three days later he suggested his wife, an experienced parachutist, go skydiving over Easter weekend 2015 and then sabotaged her kit on the eve of her 4,000ft jump at Netheravon Airfield, Wiltshire.
Cilliers tangled her main canopy and removed vital links from her reserve in a toilet cubicle after he told Mrs Cilliers one of their children needed the loo.
The father-of-six, who the prosecution called a ‘charmless unfaithful penniless scoundrel’, was also sleeping with his ex-wife Carly, Mrs Cilliers and a Tinder lover named Stefanie Goller.
The soldier, described as a ‘boobaholic’ by his wife who knew he was part of a sex club, also contacted prostitutes about meeting up on the proviso sex was unprotected and he could film the liaison – but cancelled after they tried to charge £60 instead of £50.
He also signed up to a sex club and swingers’ site to find a ‘f*** buddy’.
His first six-week trial collapsed last year when the jury couldn’t reach a verdict after his wife became a ‘hostile witness’ and admitted she had lied to police about her husband to ‘get her own back’.
But a jury found him guilty of two counts of attempted murder after a retrial that ended last month.
![Emile Cilliers tried to kill his wife (pictured in happier times) while he was sleeping with at least two other women](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/15/11/0579DAC8000003E8-5847735-image-a-21_1529058444780.jpg)
Emile Cilliers tried to kill his wife (pictured in happier times) while he was sleeping with at least two other women
![The father-of-six, who the prosecution called a 'charmless unfaithful penniless scoundrel', was sleeping with Tinder lover Stefanie Goller (pictured)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/15/11/45092EEC00000578-5847735-image-a-22_1529058464382.jpg)
The father-of-six, who the prosecution called a ‘charmless unfaithful penniless scoundrel’, was sleeping with Tinder lover Stefanie Goller (pictured)
Physiotherapist and former Army Captain Victoria Cilliers, who had 2,600 jumps to her name, leapt from the plane at Netheravon Airfield, Wilts, both parachutes failed and she plummeted helplessly to the ground.
![Carly Cilliers met her husband in a pub and would later rekindle their relationship around a decade after their divorce](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/15/11/450A0BD400000578-5847735-image-a-25_1529058495724.jpg)
Carly Cilliers met her husband in a pub and would later rekindle their relationship around a decade after their divorce
Miraculously, Mrs Cilliers, then 40, survived the terrifying fall on April 5, 2015, suffering a broken pelvis, ribs and spinal injuries.
But despite what he did to her Mrs Cilliers says she still ‘struggles to accept’ he wanted to murder her.
In an extraordinary interview after his convictions she even appeared to defend him, suggesting the jurors failed to see his ‘kind and loving side’.
She told Good Morning Britain: ‘It’s such a massive thing to get your head around and I’m still pretty stunned. I’m struggling to accept he tried to kill me. It’s such a massive thing to accept.
‘It’s hard to conceive someone so close to you would want to cause you some kind of harm.
‘I never had any indication that there was another side to him. I hope he didn’t hate me. I really don’t know. I love the husband I had and I’m grieving for that marriage. We’ve had no contact for the last three years.
‘He’s a very confident individual. The side that they don’t see is that he was a kind and loving husband’.
She added: ‘I’ve been through every emotion under the sun – I’ve had plenty of time to think about things. Which is why I’m not overtly angry. I’ve got children – I can’t be angry or bitter. I need to keep going for them’.
![Army sergeant Cilliers is seen marrying his wife Victoria in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2011, where he even went down on his knee to say his vows but soon afterwards he was cheating on her with two different women](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/04/20/450A3B6400000578-4949532-image-m-21_1507144163921.jpg)
Army sergeant Cilliers is seen marrying his wife Victoria in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2011, where he even went down on his knee to say his vows but soon afterwards he was cheating on her with two different women