Wife ‘despised’ husband accused of skydive plot
fail in November 2014. “Cracks were starting to show.
“I already had suspicions prior to that that he was having an affair,” she said.
She was also “aware that he had financial issues”.
Mrs Cilliers told the court she changed her will so that the family home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, which she owned, would go to their children. She said: “I did not challenge him with my suspicions [of an affair]. It was not the time or the place. I was pregnant. I knew there were issues but we both agreed to put it to one side until the baby was a few months old. In my mind, if things did not improve by then I would ask him to leave.”
In February 2015 she even threatened suicide in a text message to her husband.
Describing her marriage at that point, she said: “I despised him.”
She said of her husband’s affair: “I am an intelligent person, I knew exactly what was going on.
“I regretted walking out of my first marriage so quickly and didn’t want to do anything rash and I wanted his help when the baby was born. In effect I was probably using him as well. In my mind, on our wedding anniversary in September, if he had not shaped up I would ask him to get out.”
But in March 2015, prosecutors say her husband tampered with a gas fitting at their home in a bid to kill her. Then on April 5, Cilliers, who serves with the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, allegedly tampered with her parachute in another attempt to kill her.
Mrs Cilliers miraculously survived the 4,000ft fall, breaking her pelvis, ribs and fracturing her vertebrae.
Cilliers denies attempted murder and tampering with the gas fitting. The trial continues.