PARACHUTE WIFE: I LIED TO THE COPS
Scot wanted to ‘paint husband in bad picture’
A SCOT whose Army sergeant husband denies trying to murder her by sabotaging her parachutes yesterday admitted lying during a police interview.
Victoria Cilliers almost died when her equipment failed during a 4000ft skydive.
Her husband Emile, 38, is accused of tampering with her parachutes.
Victoria, originally from East Lothian, said she “elaborated” during a police interview about a month later.
In her original statement, she said she had been concerned about the amount of time Cilliers had spent in the toilet with her parachute the day before the jump.
At a retrial at Winchester Crown Court, prosecutor Michael Bowes QC asked: “Were you telling the truth?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m not saying I’m lying completely. I was angry when I made that statement and lied throughout it in order to paint Emile in a bad picture.”
Victoria was hurt at an Army parachute base in Wiltshire in April 2015.
Cilliers was £22,000 in debt and believed he would get a £120,000 insurance payout in the event of his wife’s accidental death, the court has heard.
He was having affairs with a woman called Stefanie Goller and his ex-wife Carly at the time. Cilliers also arranged to have unprotected sex with a number of prostitutes, the jury were told.
He denies two charges of attempted murder and a charge of damaging a gas fitting at the family home in Wiltshire a few days earlier, recklessly endangering life.
The retrial continues.