SA parachute fiddler jailed for life

A South African-born soldier who cheated on his wife and tried to kill her by sabotaging her parachute was jailed for life in the UK yesterday.

Emile Cilliers – whose parents Stoltz and Zaan live in Betty’s Bay in the Western Cape – will serve a minimum of 18 years for trying to gas his wife Victoria and then tampering with her parachute in 2015.

He aimed to collect a life insurance payout of about R2.1-million‚ but was convicted of two counts of attempted murder.

Four years earlier‚ the couple married in Cape Town.

After his conviction at Winchester Crown Court last month‚ Victoria said he was a kind and loving man.

She said she refused to accept he had tried to kill her and had no plans to divorce him.

But the prosecution described the 38-year-old British army sergeant as a “charmless‚ unfaithful‚ penniless scoundrel”‚ and in his sentencing remarks yesterday Justice Sweeney told him: “This was wicked offending of extreme gravity.

“Your two attempts to murder your wife . . . were planned and carried out in cold blood for your own selfish purposes‚ which include financial gain.”

Victoria broke her back‚ pelvis and ribs when she plunged to the ground from 1,200m after her main and reserve parachutes failed‚ and the judge said it was a miracle she had survived.

The jury heard that Cilliers‚ a father of six‚ had been involved in at least two extra-marital affairs‚ and was desperate to start a new life with his secret lover‚ Stefanie Goller.

He was also sleeping with his ex-wife‚ Carly Cilliers.

Victoria said she knew he was part of a sex club.

The court heard that he had also solicited prostitutes on the proviso sex was unprotected and he could film the liaison‚ and that he had joined a sex club and registered with a swingers’ website.

His first trial collapsed last year when the jury failed to reach a verdict after Victoria admitted she had lied to police about him to “get her own back”.

When Cilliers – from Ermelo, Mpumalanga – moved to the UK in 2000, he left behind two young children with their South African mother‚ Nicolene.

After the parachute incident‚ police searched the Cilliers’ family home and found a gas valve had been tampered with.

Zaan Cilliers told the Daily Mail in 2015 there was no truth to allegations her son had tried to kill Victoria.

Cilliers was an instructor with the Royal Army Physical Training Corps attached to the Royal Marines.