Cilliers Trial: Army Sergeant 'Better Off' With Wife Alive, Court Hears

Financial agreements between an Army sergeant and the wife he is accused of trying to murder would only benefit him if she was alive, a court has heard.

Victoria Cilliers, giving evidence at the Winchester Crown Court trial of Emile Cilliers, agreed that her husband was "financially incontinent" and had issues with debt.

The 42-year-old, a free fall instructor who had carried out around 2,600 jumps, survived spiralling to earth at high speed after she cut away her main parachute and her reserve chute failed during the jump at the Army Parachute Association in Netheravon, Wiltshire.

Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, is accused of tampering with her hire kit, allegedly twisting the lines of the main parachute and removing the slinks from the reserve.

The jury heard the couple both made wills and a post-nuptial agreement in 2014, several years after they married, in order to protect their children's future.

Elizabeth Marsh QC, defending, read the court details of the couple's post-nuptial agreement, which set out their assets and how they would be divided if they were to divorce.

Mrs Cilliers agreed with Ms Marsh's suggestions that her husband had not challenged the drafting of the agreement or sought to get his name on the mortgage deed.

Ms Marsh said: "When you proposed this, did Emile say 'that's outrageous'?"

"No, we discussed it," answered Mrs Cilliers.

"He admitted that money was potentially an issue and given we anticipated being married for life, it did not appear at that point to make a difference."

The defence counsel asked: "He was not pushing back in any way against this decision of both of you to protect your assets from him?"

Mrs Cilliers replied: "No he was not."

Ms Marsh said the defendant was helping Mrs Cilliers pay off a £45,000 loan from her brother, which she had borrowed because she could not get a mortgage, in return for a share of their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire.

She asked: "And this only subsists while you're alive does it not?"

The former Army captain replied: "Yes." Ms Marsh continued:

"Because if you die, the house and all your savings go to the children and he is on his uppers."

"Yes," the physiotherapist responded.

The defendant had also paid for life insurance, and Mrs Cilliers told the court she believed the payout on her death would go to her husband.

But Ms Marsh said the insurance policy "makes it plain" payment would go to a legal representative or executor and not necessarily a spouse.

She said: "So if Emile had died during currency of this policy, money would have gone to his estate.

"Similarly if you died the money would not go to to your husband it would go to your estate, did you know that?"

Mrs Cilliers replied "no", adding: "I assumed wrongly it was most likely it went to him.

"I cannot recall a conversation with my solicitor, I think because I thought it went to Emile I left the house to the children (in the will) knowing he would get the life insurance money."

Ms Marsh asked: "Does it come to this, putting the insurance money aside, Emile would have been better off with you alive than you dead, wouldn't he?"

"Yes," the witness replied.

Mrs Cilliers was questioned over her recollection of the jump on Easter Sunday, April 5 2015.

She said: "I wanted to get straight out of that plane.

"Usually that's the part that I love, the cold rush, the smell. And it just did not hit me.

"I pulled the parachute, immediately it was not right - there was a lot of twists.

"I got rid of the twists and was just completely 'no', it did not feel right.

She said she decided to cut the main parachute away but on deploying the reserve knew that too was not right.

"Immediately the world went a little bit pear-shaped - the spin was going one way and the twists were the opposite way," she said.

"I could not figure how to slow it down - it was just getting faster and faster and faster.

"The speed was unreal of the spin and there was just a big almost bang and black."

Mrs Cilliers said she recalled opening her eyes in the field where she landed and seeing her friend looking over her, before blacking out again and coming round in the helicopter that took her to hospital.

Ms Marsh then asked: "Did you do anything either accidentally or intentionally to manipulate your parachute?"

"No," the witness answered.

Under cross-examination, she also told the jury she did not recall making any comment to her husband after he had taken the parachute to the toilet with him in the hangar the day before the jump, nor seeing him with his packing paddle - described as being like a "long ruler".

Emile Cilliers, 37, denies two counts of attempted murder and a third charge of damaging a gas valve recklessly endangering life.

The trial continues on Wednesday.