I will tell my girl ‘daddy’s been bad’

AS her husband Emile Cilliers faces years behind bars for trying to kill her, Victoria is preparing for the agony of explaining his absence to their two children.

Until now, she has kept up the pretence the Army sergeant is away because of work. But this week she will tell her daughter, now six, her father is going to prison – so she does not hear the news second-hand at school.

While her three-year-old son is too young to remember Cilliers before his arrest, her daughter frequently asks for him and recently got upset when she forgot what he looks like, despite having photos.

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Victoria says: “I’ve got to be very careful how I tell them the story and how I bring them up. Over the next week, I will broach it with my daughter at some point on a very basic level. I’ll say Daddy’s been bad and he’ll have to go to jail.

“The reason he’s been convicted is not something she needs to know now.

“I suppose I’m going to have to try to seek advice. I know the school has got a child psychologist.

“I’d like to get in contact with other people in a similar situation to me – find out how they deal with it and the inevitable question of, ‘can I see Daddy?’.

“I don’t know the answers to things like that yet. I’ll largely be led by what the children want.”