I didn’t sabotage my own parachute says 4,000ft plunge wife
When interviewed by detectives, she claimed her husband had been in a toilet with her skydiving equipment for “five to 10 minutes,” the court heard.
But she told the jury her estimate of the time had been “very generous”.
She added: “I expanded on the truth because I knew potentially that was a key point that was going to get him into some hot water. At that point, I wanted him to suffer.”
Later in the same police interview, she seemed to go back on the implication he was to blame, the court heard.
Asked if she had been trying to frame her husband, she replied: “I’m saying I wanted to cast suspicion on him. I was wanting revenge. I had been ridiculed. I wanted them to investigate him.”
During the interview, around a month after the near- fatal jump, Emile Cilliers at court yesterday Mrs Cilliers told officers she could not comprehend that her husband had tried to kill her and that when she found out about his affair she was “very angry”.
She had decided the jump in 2015 would probably be her last, the court heard, as she had given birth five weeks before. She told police she could not definitely say her main parachute had malfunctioned before she cut it away. She had lost confidence in her abilities beforehand and preferred to rely on the reserve chute.
Skydiving instructor Mrs Cilliers, 42, survived the 4,000ft fall at Netheravon airfield.
Cilliers is also accused of trying to kill his wife by breaking a gas valve at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire. He denies two counts of attempted murder.
The trial continues.