THE wife of an Army sergeant who survived after her husband allegedly tampered with her parachute in a bid to kill her is one of the top parachutists in the country, a court heard.

Emile Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court on two charges of attempting to murder his former Army officer wife Victoria Cilliers, who suffered multiple serious injuries at Netheravon Airfield, on Salisbury Plain, on April 5, 2015.

Cilliers, 37, is also accused of a third charge of damaging a gas valve at their home a few days earlier in the second allegation that he attempted to kill his 40-year-old wife. He denies all three charges.

Mark Bayada, who has been chief instructor of the Army Parachute Association at Netheravon since 2013, told the court that Mrs Cilliers, who has completed more than 2,600 jumps, was a qualified instructor.

He said: "By the pure fact that she is an accelerated free fall instructor puts her in the top per cent of competency in the country."

Describing her teaching ability, he continued: "Absolutely brilliant, never had any issues at all with what she taught, top notch, no negatives about her teaching."

Mr Bayada described Mrs Cilliers as "quiet, unassuming, just got on with it, intelligent, a trained physiotherapist, just got on with the job."

Mr Bayada, who joined the Parachute Regiment in 1987 and went on join the Red Devils and who has completed more than 5,000 jumps, explained to the jury the procedures required for preparing the kit for jumps.

Mr Bayada said that the slinks, two of which were found to be missing from Mrs Cilliers' reserve parachute were "vital".

The court has heard that slinks, which join the harness and the rigging lines, are "extremely strong" and under tests did not fail until subjected to a load of 884kg (1,948lb).

He said: "A method of attaching lines to the riser is absolutely vital, if it's not connected to the kit, it's not going to work."

The jury was shown a video of Mr Bayada explaining different types of parachute malfunctions and demonstrating how a parachute is packed and worn.

On the video, he shows how the slinks are attached and said: "The more it pulls, the more it tightens itself making it almost impossible for it to come off by mistake."

Describing the malfunction of Mrs Cilliers' main parachute, he said: "We are looking at a distorted canopy where lines had crossed, it was distorted, rotated and bunched up."

The trial has heard that when Mrs Cilliers was unable to jump on the Easter Saturday because of poor weather, the defendant arranged to keep her hire parachute in her locker overnight until she was able to jump the next day.

Mr Bayada said he could think of no reason to do this and added: "Everyone is expected to return it to the kit store. There is no financial benefit to keeping it out."

Michael Bowes QC, prosecuting, has suggested Cilliers did not want to return the kit to the store because he had already tampered with it.

mfl Page 2: 16:19 Mr Bayada said he was at Netheravon on Easter Sunday, April 5 2015, when Mrs Cilliers suffered her "near-fatal fall" when both her main and reserve parachutes failed.

He said he rushed to the field where she had landed after a speaker announcement had gone out calling for him to attend. He said he was informed of the incident by a colleague who spoke with a "panicked" voice.

He said that two club members trained as medics gave Mrs Cilliers first aid while he arranged for an air ambulance to be scrambled.

Mr Bayada said: "When the air ambulance arrived, we used the reserve (parachute) as a screen for any dirt or stones that would inevitably fly around when the air ambulance did land near her."

He said she was then put on a stretcher and taken to hospital.

He said the reason for her survival could be because of her small size and the surface of the field.

Mr Bayada said: "She landed on a ploughed field which was exceptionally soft so I think both of those were in her favour."

He noticed that the lines from the main parachute were tangled and that two of the four slinks were missing from the reserve.

The prosecution allege that Cilliers had tampered with the main parachute and sabotaged the reserve by removing two of the slinks.

Mr Bayada said he believed the main parachute had been sabotaged by wrapping the lines around each other within the parachute container.

He said: "I decided in my mind I found it highly unlikely that a normal packed parachute, correctly packed or even a normal user error, would result in a malfunction with that much entanglement because we normally see a twist in lines but never that continued entanglement where all the lines are massively entangled."

He said his only innocent theory for the missing slinks from the reserve was that they had been cut off by one of the first aiders or medics but on checking he found that no-one had cut anything apart from her goggles strap.

The jury was shown a video of Mr Bayada searching the lines of the parachute for the missing slinks and the court heard he searched the area of the jump for the missing parts.

He said: "Knowing the slinks as being such a strong piece of equipment, had the shock been so much to break two slinks I would expect to have seen some damage to other pieces of equipment.

"What I thought was most unusual was that not only was there no damage but actually there was no visible sign that either the risers or lines had been under load."

He explained that Mrs Cilliers had made a "sub terminal jump" which meant that she had not reached full speed because of the short period of free fall during the low 4,000ft jump.

He said this combined with Mrs Cilliers's light weight would have reduced the impact on the parachute of the jump.

He said: "I would not expect gear failure for such a light person. I began to wonder if the slinks had ever been there at all."

The case continues today