A woman has explained why she still visited her husband in jail after he tampered with her parachute and attempted to murder her during a skydiving jump.
Both of Victoria Cilliers' parachutes failed on a skydiving trip in Netheravon, Wiltshire, back in 2015.
The military physiotherapist somehow survived the 4000ft fall.
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After landing in a ploughed field at 60mph, she broke her pelvis, back, ribs and 'had a few minor internal injuries'.
Following her recovery, Victoria still did not expect her husband to be behind the murder plot.
Her story is now being told in three-part Channel 4 docuseries The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot.
Watch below:
The pair first met when Emile, now 44, worked as an army sergeant, and Victoria, now 48, who also worked in the army in 2010.
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“[Emile] came out of nowhere, it was a bit like a lovebomb,” she recently told Loose Women.
“He promised me pretty much everything that I wanted, it felt like a fairytale.”
They went on to get married in 2011 and had two children together.
Years later though they started having issues.
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“I’d got to the point where I’d had enough of the relationship and the marriage,” she admitted. “But it felt like maybe all is not lost. He wants to do something together.”
On how she survived that 4000ft fall in 2015, Victoria explained: “I think it was a mix of things.
“It was a combination of luck, trying to slow it down as much as I could, [and landing in a ploughed field helped].”
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Amid the investigation, Victoria said that she still visited him in prison because of the coercive control he had over her.
Meanwhile, police discovered that her husband was in the toilet with Victoria's parachute between five and 10 minutes before her jump.
They also learnt that, days earlier, he tried to kill Victoria by causing a gas leak.
Having collected more and more evidence, a psychologist concluded Emile to be a very dangerous psychopath.
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The case then went to trail at Winchester Crown Court in 2017.
Initially, Victoria defended her husband, who used escorts and went to sex clubs, saying in the documentary: “I was always very aware of every answer I gave, the impact that, potentially, it could have on my future.
“I don’t think I lied a lot. I think I kept a lot of secrets, I kept a lot to myself.”
Despite her defence, police convinced a jury that Victoria was a victim of coercive control and her husband was subsequently sentenced to 36 years in jail, serving a minimum of 18 years.
After realising that her husband was 'extremely dangerous', she recalled the moment she told him she wanted a divorce.
Victoria said: “I have started seeing it all. This person, and what they've done to me...I don't know how you can do that to someone who you loved and had children with.”
The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot is available to watch on All4 now.
Topics: Channel 4, Crime, True Crime
Anish Vij