When former Army sergeant Emile Cilliers tried to kill his wife by tampering with her parachute and sabotaging a gas valve at their home even hardened police officers were shocked by his calculating callousness.
But one person who appeared unable to accept the enormity of Cilliers’s crimes was his intended victim, his wife.
The 38-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years on Friday after being convicted of two charges of attempted murder.
Officers said Victoria Cilliers had been the victim of her husband’s "subtle and coercive" behaviour, leaving her “deeply traumatised".
Even after the guilty verdict was returned last month, following a retrial, Mrs Cilliers seemed to struggle...