Parachute plot husband hid debt from wife

AN ARMY sergeant accused of tampering with his wife’s parachute in a botched murder plot has told a court he was hiding debt from her.

Entering the witness box for the first time, Emile Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, said he owed wife Victoria several thousand pounds and repeatedly borrowed cash from various sources to pay existing loans.

The 37-year-old is charged with attempted murder after his 42-year-old wife’s main parachute failed to open correctly in a 4,000ft jump at Netheravon Airfield on Salisbury Plain, Wilts, in 2015. A reserve parachute also failed.

Jurors at Winchester Crown Court were told Mrs Cilliers’s survival, albeit with serious injuries, was a “near miracle”, and was largely attributed to the soft soil in the ploughed field where she landed. Mr Cilliers told the jury he had kept secret from his wife the extent of his debt because he was afraid she would leave him.

But when Mrs Cilliers discovered the truth, she agreed to bail him out.

Emile Cilliers denies attempting to murder his wife by tampering with her parachute, a second attempted murder charge relating to a gas leak at their home, as well as a third charge of damaging a gas valve, recklessly endangering life. The trial continues.