I’M GLAD EVIL DAD WAS FOUND GUILTY
Lies and double life of parachute sabotage father exposed by eldest girl
THE daughter of a would-be killer last night admitted: “I wanted that jury to find him guilty as much as anyone else.”
Emile Cilliers was jailed for 18 years after trying to murder his wife by sabotaging her parachute.
POSING with his teenage daughter, Emile Cilliers looks quite the doting dad. But the charming smile is the mask of a would-be killer and weeks after this picture was taken he tried to murder Scots wife Victoria by sabotaging her parachute.
Now, as Cilliers starts a life sentence for attempted murder, Cilene – the eldest of the six children he had by three different women – tells how she grew up a victim of his lies, duplicity and cold-hearted abandonment.
Cilene, 18, says: “He might be my dad, but I wanted that jury to find him guilty as much as anyone else.
“His conviction was justice not only for Victoria, but for everyone who has crossed paths with him and been hurt, me included.”
The trial in October exposed her father as a debt-ridden sex addict who had cheated on Victoria, from Haddington, East Lothian, throughout their marriage, having sex with prostitutes and even his first wife Carly.
He had plotted to kill Victoria to clear his debts and start a new life with Austrian Stefanie Goller, a Tinder date.
The trial and its revelations brought one positive for Cilene, finding out about the four brothers and sisters Cilliers had kept secret from her.
She says: “Dad did manage to achieve something good – his children. I’d love to get to know them all properly. They’re my half brothers and sisters and have lost their father, just like me.”
Cilene’s mum Nicolene Shepherd was just 13 when she started dating Cilliers, who was three years older, in Ermelo, South Africa.
By 16, Nicolene was pregnant with Cilene and a year later she was expecting again, with their son, Trevor.
Cilene, who became a mum herself when daughter Eliana was born five months ago, remembers one happy period of her childhood in South Africa.
“We had a big house with grounds and a swimming pool. I remember playing in the sandpit, an old tractor tyre filled with sand, and dad chasing me around the garden with a hose pipe. It was blissful.”
Even then, Cilliers was building a double life as he flitted between South Africa and the UK for work.
Nicolene, by then his fiancee, was planning to follow him to Britain when his mother dropped the bombshell that he had secretly wed a British woman, Carly Taylor. Nicolene pushed ahead with the move regardless. Her mother Anna followed a year later, in 2005, with Cilene and Trevor.
Cilene says: “I thought I was moving to the UK so we could all be together, but Dad was nowhere to be seen. I kept asking and asking Mum about him and eventually she got in touch with him through his mum.” Cilliers claimed he was now estranged from Carly, with whom he’d had two children, and got back with Nicolene. But Nicolene soon discovered his marriage to Carly was far from over and Emile disappeared again. Cilene says: “I was about six years old. Dad was driving me, mum and Trevor from our home in Somerset to Nan’s house in Harlow. We drove in silence. The atmosphere was horrible. “When we got there, Dad gave us a hug and said goodbye. He was
meant to be picking us up in three days but never came back. It was the last time we saw him for almost 10 years.”
As she got older, Cilene tried contacting her father through social media but she was ignored.
Then, three years ago, Cilliers’ mother Zaan got in touch to say she wanted to meet Cilene and Trevor and would bring their father along too.
By then, Nicolene was married with three more children, and Cilene and Trevor lived with their gran in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
Cilliers, an Army sergeant, had wed a second time and had two children with Victoria.
In March 2015, the same month he made his first attempt on Victoria’s life, Cilliers was reunited with his eldest two children in a Travelodge.
Cilene says: “The night before, I barely slept. I had this picture of Dad in my head and I couldn’t wait to see if, all these years later, it was right.
“We heard a knock at the door and there he was, just as I’d remembered him. We both froze. I didn’t know whether to hug him or shake his hand.
“Then he put his arms out for a hug. I expected him to properly embrace me but it felt really weak and awkward. After a couple of seconds, he let go. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed.”
Emile took Cilene and Trevor to a coffee shop. Cilene says: “I asked Dad where he’d been and what he’d been doing all this time but he was really cold and indifferent. It was like he was just doing his duty in meeting us.
“He was focused on Trevor and the whole thing left me feeling sidelined.
“I think I reminded him of my mum and it made him remember how badly he had treated her. Meeting Dad again turned out to be a big disappointment. I had harboured an image of a dad who loved me but he managed to shatter that in just a few hours.”
What Cilene did not know then was that her father’s life was a mess and he was plotting to kill Victoria and pocket £120,000 life insurance.
On March 30, he tampered with a gas pipe at their Wiltshire home. When that failed, he booked a jump for experienced parachutist Victoria on April 5, rigging her chute so that it failed to open when she leapt from 4000ft.
But, incredibly, she survived, landing in a soft, freshly ploughed field. A month later, when Victoria was still in hospital recovering from a fractured spine, pelvis and broken ribs, police arrested Cilliers, 38.
Cilene, now living in Northamptonshire, said: “I had no idea why Dad had been arrested. He kept in touch and promised to visit for my 16th birthday. I called off a big party and waited in all day. Of course, he never showed up.
“Weeks later, a social worker came and told me everything. “I remember thinking, ‘What sort of person does something like that?’ I was shocked but in a weird way I wasn’t surprised. We never even knew he’d got married again, let alone had more children. Victoria heard about me and Trevor for the first time during the court case. Dad was on trial, I was heavily pregnant with his first grandchild, and it was like we didn’t exist. It was heartbreak after heartbreak.”
A jury at Winchester Crown Court found Cilliers guilty on two counts of attempted murder. He got life, with a minimum of 18 years, on June 15.
Cilene says: “I really wanted him to be found guilty. But it was still a shock and a strange mix of emotions. For the first time, he is paying the price for his actions but six children are growing up without their dad and Eliana will never get to know her grandad.
“It would be nice for us all to know we’ve got each other, and that not everything Dad did was negative.”
CILENE CILLIERS DEATH PLOTTER’S DAUGHTER