Man accused of parachute bid to kill wife ‘unemotional’ after her fall

‘The whole canopy was distorted’

A BRITISH army sergeant accused of attempting to murder his wife by tampering with her parachute was ‘unemotional and bewildered’ when he visited the airfield the following day, a court has heard.

Emile Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, faces two charges of attempting to murder his former Army officer wife Victoria, who suffered multiple serious injuries at Netheravon Airfield on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, on Easter Sunday – April 5 – 2015.

The 37-year-old is also accused of damaging a gas valve at their home a few days earlier in the second allegation that he attempted to kill his wife, who is originally from Haddington, East Lothian. He denies all three charges.

Winchester Crown Court was told that the day after the alleged incident, the defendant visited the airfield and met Mark Bayada, who has been chief instructor of the Army Parachute Association at Netheravon since 2013.

In his third day of evidence, Mr Bayada told how he had said in his police statement that Cilliers had appeared ‘unemotional’ and ‘bewildered’.

He added that Cilliers had seemed ‘very quiet’ and ‘in shock’, but added that he did not know him very well.

Mr Bayada said that after further investigations by his staff, a decision was made to contact police about the parachute malfunction.

The prosecution allege that the main parachute was tampered with and Cilliers removed two slinks from the reserve which are used to attach the harness to the rigging.

The court was told that witness James Lowrey saw 40-year-old Mrs Cilliers’ parachute ‘collapse in on itself’ and compared it to a ‘quilt with a weight attached’. His statement to the jury, said: ‘The whole canopy was distorted, I have not seen anything like it before.’

The trial continues on Tuesday, when the jury will take part in a court visit to Netheravon Airfield.