The near-victim who became a hostile witness

Victoria Cilliers, left, survived her fall on Easter Sunday in April 2015 but incurred near-fatal injuries. The jury were shown her parachute, right, which was found to have been tampered with. The court was told it was a ‘near miracle’ she had survived, thanks to the soft soil of the ploughed field where she landed. Her light weight was said to be a factor in minimising her injuries The trial of Emile Cilliers hinged on the contradictory evidence given by the wife he was accused of attempting to murder.

After telling the original trial at Winchester Crown Court that she “despised” her husband for his “affairs, lies and deceit”, Victoria Cilliers backtracked on the statement she gave to police two years earlier.

The 41-year-old said that at the time she had wanted to “get her own back” on her husband.

A key factor in the trial was the amount of time Cilliers had to allegedly tamper with his wife’s parachute at Netheravon Airfield.

The court instructed chief instructor Mark Bayada to carry out a filmed reconstruction of the process. It took him just over five minutes to complete the staged sabotage.

In her first interview, Ms Cilliers said he was only alone with the parachute for “two minutes” but in a second interview she amended this to between “five and ten minutes.” But in court, Mrs Cilliers said she had “exaggerated” as she was angry with her husband after learning the extent of his infidelity.

The revelation disrupted the trial, with the prosecution successfully applying to the judge for Ms Cilliers to be treated as 0 Emile Cilliers was ‘despised’ for his ‘affairs, lies and deceit’ a hostile witness. This meant that she was no longer treated as a witness for the prosecution and allowed prosecutor Michael Bowes QC to crossexamine her as if she was a defence witness.

Asked by police why she had changed her accounts between her two statements, Ms Cilliers said that initially, her “gut instinct” was “absolutely no way on Earth would he do something like that.”

Explaining her account in a second interview five days later, she said: “Since finding out I had no idea when he last told the truth about anything, then go for it, warts and all.”

But her evidence reverted towards her original timeframe when she told the jury: “It was probably somewhere in between.”

Whenaskedifshehadalways told the truth, she replied: “Not always. The extent of his lies and deceit had been disclosed to me and I just wanted to get my own back to a certain extent.”