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Britains Almost Perfect Murder Episode 1 Engsub
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00:01The perfect murder, the unsolvable crime, does it really exist?
00:08In a TV first, we reveal the cutting-edge technology
00:12now used by British police to join the dots
00:15and reveal new evidence in all homicide investigations.
00:19I'm Tim Tate. I've been an investigative journalist for almost 50 years.
00:26I'm Sam Robbins and I'm a criminal intelligence analyst.
00:30For over 20 years, I've worked alongside detectives on major murder investigations.
00:34Together, in this new series, we are going to discover the fatal mistakes
00:39which prevented the perfect murder from ever being committed.
01:07To be continued...
01:10to be continued...
01:14To be continued...
01:25murder many killers go on to put that plan into action very few though try to commit
01:35the perfect murder on the same victim twice
01:43Emile Cillier is the rare exception over the space of just a few days in spring 2015
01:50Emile Cillier tried to kill his wife Victoria twice but because she did
02:01Emile Cillier's double life as an abusive husband a serial philanderer a fraudster
02:10and a would-be murderer rapidly unraveled this case continues to be of interest to the public
02:19because it's a sexy case it has somebody from the military it has good-looking people it has sex
02:25it has all sorts that makes it titillating for the public to listen to and to hear the details of
02:32and they can't get enough of it in my career this was defining for me to be honest i was
02:40involved in
02:41that case for three years and it was three years of long hard work Emile Cillier stand out purely
02:46because of the person he was purely purely because the characteristic traits that he showed
02:51everything Emile did had to bring a benefit to Emile whether that's financial sexual the extremes he
02:57went to to achieve those ends you rarely see in people
03:05Sam Emile Cillier what do we know about him so he originated from South Africa
03:12he had a relationship with a very young girl Nicolene and she's only 13 at the time she becomes
03:19pregnant at 16 so she's a very very young mother that was the start of a pattern a repeating pattern
03:25of
03:27predatory behavior by Cillier and he likes money doesn't he he likes the really good things in life
03:34think he probably looked at himself as a bit of a James Bond figure he liked all the latest gadgets
03:40you know he was very keen on money and the finer things in life and he liked that playboy lifestyle
03:46of having multiple relationships despite the fact that he marries some of the females that he's in
03:52relationships with he has children when he bores of those responsibilities he just moves on
03:58so Emile Cilliers is all about Emile Cilliers you what are you describing are psychopathic traits
04:08definitely some psychopathic traits in there and the the trait that really comes out in all of his
04:13behaviors in this case is is narcissism so people like Emile Cilliers often have a collection of traits
04:20we call them the dark triad so there's psychopathy Machiavellianism and narcissism and certainly Emile
04:27has had elements of all those three traits they sort of link together largely through this sort of
04:32common aim of manipulation but again this general disregard for other people the feelings and an
04:39inability really to connect emotionally with people every action that Emile takes is all about
04:47furthering his own wants and needs and exerting power and control over those around him
04:53so his first major relationship he fathers two children with her he does but he doesn't hang
05:00around very long he moves to the UK so he essentially abandons his pregnant girlfriend
05:08and then when he's in the UK she gives birth to his son
05:12so Emile Cilliers really sees other people as something that he can use for his own gains very
05:18quick then to move on as soon as he finds something new or the parts of his life are not
05:24unfolding as he
05:25wished them to and he will manipulate and con people in various situations
05:32in his late teens early 20s he moved to the UK he worked a number of casual jobs
05:38before settling down in ipswich in suffolk where he'd met carly silliers who he subsequently married
05:44had children with he forms a relationship with a lady called carly who he marries and then it goes
05:52on to have two more children whilst he was with her he joined the army being a south african national
05:57he was allowed to and from there he initially joined the royal artillery who were based in lark hill just
06:03outside salisbury from working with them he gravitated more towards the pti side of it
06:09and on getting promotion he joined the royal army physical training corps as a sergeant
06:17narcissistic individuals seek out occupations or they'll pretend to be from occupations
06:23that exert authority and control and what's quite interesting with emil silliers is he joins the
06:29army it's all the things that would appeal to his narcissistic characteristics and he becomes a skier
06:37for the army he's going on lots of skiing expeditions and becomes really very proficient until he has
06:43a very serious skiing accident being married to someone like that can't be easy no absolutely and
06:52actually it leads to a breakdown of the marriage from carly and emil and carly separate but he has to
07:02have physiotherapy as part of his recovery and he meets victoria who is his physiotherapist
07:11she is um going through a divorce from from a very tricky marriage a fairly abusive marriage that she
07:20was in so she's a vulnerable individual is at a time when emil is is essentially looking for his next
07:28fix and high and next uh victim in terms of female relationship so he's on the hunt absolutely and
07:35he you know i think what is really clear from the whole of the timeline is that he's got very
07:41predatory
07:42behavior she was a captain in the army before leaving and joining the mod as a physiotherapist
07:49and i think he saw her as a way to making himself appear higher up in the echelons if you
07:57like than he
07:58actually was and he could use her and her connections in order to do this so in the first few
08:05months they
08:06were very much in love he would love bomb victoria he would make her feel like the best thing in
08:11the
08:12world and like he couldn't live without her he fastens on to victoria what need is he meeting
08:21for her what emil is excellent at as are all narcissists is being able to look at a situation
08:29and mirror back about the behaviors that they want someone to someone else to see in them
08:36so he knows and he spots very quickly that victoria is vulnerable so he starts to inhabit all the
08:43behaviors that are going to be needed to win her over and it's a term called love bombing and when
08:49you see that very very early on when it comes very quickly and it's hard and fast it really is
08:56a massive
08:56red flag that you've potentially got a problem because someone's trying so hard to win you over and if
09:01you're victoria it's very hard to spot that isn't it there is no quicker way to fall in love than
09:06thinking that you're falling in love with someone who's got your values and your best interests at
09:10heart it's not just values though is it victoria's hobby becomes part of emil's life yes
09:22so victoria's hobby was skydiving in fact it was more than a hobby it was a way of life for
09:27her
09:27she was a free fall skydive instructor and she'd done over two and a half thousand jumps so she was
09:33extremely experienced and very very well respected in the parachuting world sillier trained as a packer
09:42someone who is qualified to pack the main parachutes and also the reserve chutes which are sometimes
09:51deployed if the main canopy doesn't open or malfunctions and by 2013 he'd got full qualifications
09:58on both and was earning extra pay as a packer meanwhile back at home victoria has given birth
10:08to their daughter yes her first child yes emil's fifth yes what's he doing around this time so he's
10:17certainly not being the loving attention giving father that he should be so that love bombing of
10:25victoria in order to win her over has done exactly what emil wants it to do it's got her into
10:30a position
10:30where she's married him and she's had a child with him he on the other hand is carrying on like
10:37he always
10:37does so from the surface everything looked almost picture perfect but behind that you had a wife that
10:45was ignored he'd spend many nights away he would go to swinging parties he would try and coerce
10:51victorians going to swinging parties women he met there he would meet subsequently on weekends
10:56he was on the various dating apps so he was constantly looking for sexual partners whilst married
11:05financially how's the family doing not brilliantly so emil is also in order to to chase the highs that he
11:13so desperately desperately needs is gambling and he's starting to spend the family money and also
11:18his playboy lifestyle he always wants the finest things it's not necessarily about getting the
11:25finest things for his his small family it's about feeding himself so the the money starts to decrease
11:32and to the point where he starts to lie to victoria about what he needs funds for i think first
11:39of all
11:39the one was to fund an operation for his father and then he starts to steal money from victoria he
11:46steals money from his own wife he does i don't know whether she knew where it was going because they
11:52would never discuss this he would never allow that conversation to happen but she did challenge him on
11:57why money went from her accounts there was one point i think it was six thousand pounds went from
12:02account to two in three two thousand lump sums and he just gave us some cock and ball story about
12:08it
12:09was a bank's fault it was this fault it was everyone else's fault and when she dug down into it
12:13she realized
12:14the money had gone from her account to his account using their own sort of home computers etc the ip
12:19addresses of those emil blamed the bank for their incompetence and he said do you think i'm stupid
12:28this is all your fault this is all your fault you're mad this is this is nothing to do with
12:32me you're
12:33paranoid and he made her think that it couldn't possibly have been him and it was all down to her
12:39insecurity emil sillier subjected victoria to what psychologists term coercive control he would
12:50criticize her viciously one minute and then praise her like a princess next it meant
12:57she never knew which emil sillier she was gonna get coercive control is nothing to do with gender
13:05class age it goes across everything it's not the obvious broken arm black eye violence but that subtle
13:15coercive control where they lose control of their freedom their confidence their finances
13:22so they become effectively a shell of themselves they're shut away from their friends and their family
13:26and they're just there to serve a person
13:40we fast forward not very far to november 2014 on your timeline victoria's pregnant with their second
13:49child yes but emil is not being any more faithful no he's not and he is now regained enough fitness
13:58to
13:59be back skiing with the army so he goes on a one month skiing course to austria and he meets
14:07stephanie
14:07and he starts to have an affair with her and this particular relationship will be critical
14:14in the undoing of emil sillier so emil had met a lady called steph goller she became his new infatuation
14:24victoria had her suspicions she certainly at times thought something was going on but he denied it
14:30always denied it and would put the blame back on her that she was paranoid and ridiculous but did she
14:37ever
14:37think he would go as far as to try and kill her no absolutely not this is just a continuation
14:43of his
14:43narcissism he started another relationship and he wanted to be with her he told a load of lies
14:50to start this new relationship by saying he was single etc and the only way you could see out of
14:55it
14:56if you got rid of vicky get rid of the children pick up the life insurance he could start fresh
15:02emil silliers was different to a lot of men who commit murder because for him he didn't want to be
15:10necessarily actively involved in that murder as in face to face it needed to be from a distance so
15:16that he could distance himself from it and he didn't feel therefore perhaps that he was part of it
15:23i think once the decision was made emil silliers would have stopped at nothing
15:26he needed to move on and to move on he needed to get rid of victoria so he plans what
15:35he thinks is
15:36going to be a perfect murder and what emil had done is he'd taken a room at the barracks all
15:42the shots
15:42so on sunday night he used to leave home and go to the barracks saying it was too difficult to
15:48drive on
15:48a monday morning essentially he used it as a place he could take other women back to
15:54so on that sunday what he did was he put the children to bed early had dinner put vicky to
15:58bed she went to bed about 10 he then went downstairs into the kitchen he loosened the gas valves i
16:03had a
16:03gas hob in a brand new kitchen with an emergency cut off as they all have now and he loosened
16:09the nut
16:09on that to allow gas to seep into the kitchen and he left and went straight to the barracks overnight
16:16in the process of loosening the knob sillier grazed his knuckle he didn't notice but there was a tiny
16:25smear of blood he then got in his car he didn't drive straight to the barracks on route he stopped
16:34to
16:34have sex with his ex-wife carly and then arrived at the barracks and texted love messages to stephanie
16:42golly all the while knowing that the gas was building up in the kitchen and that when victoria
16:50switched on the gas hob she and their two children would be blown to bits he was prepared to try
17:00and
17:00blow up the house with the gas leak whilst his children were there yeah i get marriages relationships
17:07fail i get rightly or wrongly that people then end up in some sort of violent confrontation with each
17:12other but how rarely do you see people that are willing to allow their children to be collateral
17:18damaging and be killed even amongst lots of criminals that would be seen as quite extreme but
17:24he doesn't have this conscience in a sense that if he gets away with it then it won't matter to
17:30him he
17:31won't feel bad the only real consequences that he wants to avoid is being caught
17:38victoria became aware when she came down the stairs on a monday morning that there was a smell of gas
17:43in
17:43the kitchen so when she smelt gas she messaged a meal and said do you know anything about this and
17:51he
17:51said to her have you put stove on and she replied immediately well i'd rather not obviously he didn't
17:57come home at that time he just left her to sort it out so she actually called out another gas
18:02engineer
18:02who came and found the loose nut and tightened it up
18:08victoria's suspicion is already building that all is not well here
18:12so she sends him a sort of jokey text saying are you trying to kill us which he reacts very
18:20badly to
18:21and obviously does what he does in every situation where he's being caught out he tries gaslighting her
18:28in terms of making her think she's going crazy he loves them why would you know don't be ridiculous
18:33why why would i do such a thing but by this point victoria's suspicions have definitely raised to the
18:40point where she thinks she needs to take some kind of protective action and she does doesn't she she takes
18:46action to protect her family's finances she does unbeknown to emil she actually writes him out of her
18:55will that is a really strong course of action to write your loving husband out of a will should you
19:03lose
19:03your life we know he doesn't know about this because he takes his own action he does so one thing
19:12that
19:12you'll always look for when you're looking at a murder inquiry is has any suspicious activity
19:17taken place prior to the incident being discovered so one thing that the police would always look for
19:23is has any have any insurance policies been taken out and lo and behold in this case police find that
19:30an insurance policy for 120 000 pounds has been taken out in victoria's life by emil we're now coming to
19:38april 2015 everything's coming to a head yes his first attempt has failed so within days he's hatched
19:46another plan which possibly was when you look back to 2012 so almost three years earlier did he always
19:53have this in his mind that he could manipulate conditions to the point where he could encourage
20:00victoria to jump out of an airplane so victoria and emil already had a three-year-old child and victoria
20:07had just had a baby five weeks prior she obviously hadn't been jumping since she found out she was
20:13pregnant and emil five days after the gas leak said to her why don't you go and jump this weekend
20:20it
20:21would be lovely for you to get back into it again victoria thinking she had the old emil back again
20:27jumped at the chance and said yes i'd love to she was now capable of jumping but with two young
20:34children
20:34she was a little bit dubious about you know is this a sport i want to get back into but
20:38i still have
20:39the same love for it now my mom of two so he convinced her to go they would try it
20:43that weekend
20:45so he come home they packed up saturday morning they shot up there now this is april may time so
20:52skydiving is very weather dependent it has to be clear they don't jump through clouds
20:57etc so if it's any of that then there's no jumping emil had taken a parachute out for her from
21:02the
21:02parachute center he had rented it for her because her own parachute was in for repairs so that was
21:08given to him he puts it on his shoulder she finishes paperwork comes over and joins him
21:13and the little girl says mommy i need to go for a wee wee i need to go to toilet
21:17so he says don't
21:19worry i'll take us he takes the little girl into the men's toilets and he's there a number of minutes
21:25five plus minutes we believe that when he was in that toilet we believe that that is when he tampered
21:32with the parachute she goes and listens at the door and hears some sort of chingling type noise difficult
21:38to describe but sort of something in there that was a funny noise but she comes back a minute or
21:45two
21:45later emil comes out with the little girl and the parachute on his shoulder and they have a bit of
21:51chat they didn't get told look it's too cloudy today there's going to be no jumping
21:56but instead of putting the parachute back in the main store where all the parachutes are stored for
22:01the jumps emil ensures that it's placed into victoria's locker at the airfield so that she will
22:07go and retrieve that exact parachute so it's so calculating that he's ensuring every step of this
22:13plan he's failed once to try and kill her he's not going to make that mistake again and he's going
22:18to ensure that she gets the parachute that's 40 this time meal insisted that victoria put it into
22:25their locker this was really unusual but victoria didn't want to make a fuss the children needed to
22:32get home they needed to be fed so she agreed and they put that parachute that he had rented for
22:37her
22:37into their locker overnight would have really taken some pleasure in trying to create some kind of
22:45situation that was indicative of his narcissistic beliefs it reflects very much on his personality
22:51there were probably less audacious conspicuous ways in which he could have killed his wife if
22:57he really wanted to but it really reflected on him as a person that he wanted to do it in
23:01this in this
23:02very almost flamboyant way
23:06the next morning on the sunday the weather had lifted slightly and victoria went to netheravon
23:13airfield on her own she drove herself this point she's still expressing milk breastfeeding so there's
23:20some text conversations about you know this is it's quite difficult to find a private space and you know
23:25i feel awkward and i've got a sort of milk so i might just come home she says he said
23:29no no don't come home
23:30you know stay there be great you'll enjoy it jump twice if you can yet again it was bad weather
23:36throughout the day but at about four o'clock in the afternoon they said that they could jump but they
23:41would only go up to 4 000 feet as the cloud cover was very low it was going to be
23:45a jump called a hop
23:46and pop which meant that almost as soon as you come out the plane you pull your parachute so there's
23:51very
23:51little free fall so she said she was always nervous but she put that down to look i'm jumped for
24:01months
24:01mum of two you know i've got some concerns but other than that you know the parachute looked fine
24:06there's nothing untoward about it visually one by one the divers jumped and she watched as their canopies
24:14opened and they floated down towards the ground and then she lodged herself out of the plane
24:23after victoria left the plane she was at 4 000 feet almost instantly she pulled the handle to
24:30engage her main parachute but to her horror when she looked up she could see that the lines were twisted
24:37when you deploy you look up and it should be like a rectangle of material above your head
24:41busily demonstrates that it's deployed correctly and you can fly it and she realized straight away
24:46something's wrong it's not a rectangular material and she can't use it victoria was both highly
24:52experienced and highly trained she knew what to do in these circumstances she'd been trained to cut away
25:00the main malfunctioning chute and pull the cord the reserve chute which would get her safely to ground
25:07when you cut away a main parachute the reserve comes out almost instantly you can pull it manually but
25:14it does come out as an automatic response however when her reserve parachute opened she realized that
25:21only half of it was attached on one side the slinks which are a key component of the parachute were
25:27missing and her parachute was no longer attached on one side so now she's not flying at all but it's
25:34put her
25:34into a spiral and what she says is i don't really ever look down i don't really ever start to
25:42panic i
25:43just spend my time trying to correct it trying to fly you know training kicks in and i try and
25:48get on
25:51during the fall victoria was conscious of fighting all the way and she will say she fought she fought with
25:58everything all the way down this was her life she thought about her children she thought about them
26:05being left without a mother but ultimately she fought to stay alive spectators watched in horror
26:14they were convinced there was only going to be one outcome for this
26:19they have an open top double-decker bus on the apron out the front so someone stands at the top
26:25with
26:25pair of binoculars so straight away they put up an emergency call that they can see something is
26:30clearly wrong as she's descending so straight away they go towards where she's heading because she's
26:35now heading away from the hangar and away from the landing site she is twisting in the air because of
26:41the
26:41spin of the parachute and she lands about 10 to 15 feet from a road in a plowed field a
26:49freshly plowed field
26:52by chance that field had been recently plowed making the ground of the mud softer for a landing
27:01and frankly victoria had also been well trained in how to protect herself on difficult landings
27:09and although she was horribly injured with a broken pelvis spine and a huge number of other injuries
27:16victoria sillier was alive
27:30victoria was plunging 4 000 feet towards the ground at a rate of 60 miles an hour and when she
27:40hit the
27:40ground spectators watched in horror no one could surely survive that but victoria did
27:55normally you don't survive that piece of luck for victoria it is genuinely miraculous that she
28:03survived this attempt on her life and it was down to a couple of factors really
28:09one is that she was an incredibly experienced skydiver so she did actually know what to do
28:17in an emergency situation not that she probably ever would have faced that in her life or every
28:22ever witnessed anybody doing it but she did know what to do so she knew how to position her body
28:27in the best way to minimize injury the other stroke of luck is that she happens to land on a
28:35freshly
28:35plowed field she miraculously survived she is hideously injured with various broken bones and
28:42damage to internal organs but she does survive and and amazingly she is conscious when the the rescue
28:49team get out to her
28:53first person to race to her was a royal marine who was up there that day he had a body
28:58bag in his car
28:59actually and he thought that's what they were going to use when they get there they find her
29:02sort of semi-conscious and groaning you know against all the odds and you know they can't believe it
29:07they then click into you know safety mode first aid calling their air ambulance etc emile was called
29:15by one of the people working at the parachute center they advised of the accident and what had happened
29:20and that she'd survived and was being taken to southampton hospital emile didn't say much at all
29:26he was quite quiet on the phone for a little while and then said i shall sort some child care
29:30and i'll
29:30go down to the hospital and learning that she survived the accident it won't necessarily have
29:37bothered him too much it would have just been a little bit of an inconvenience and he undoubtedly
29:41would have tried to do it again because this was not something that he would have played on his
29:45emotions or any guilt or any worry about anything another good example of his attitude was he was due to
29:54go and visit victorian hospital in southampton so he searched for a sex worker who lived in the
30:00vicinity of southampton hospital so he could go there first before going to see his wife
30:06who would do that you know you're going to see your wife who's just fallen 4 000 feet she's in
30:11intensive care in hospital and yet you're more concerned with can i get can i have sex with a sex
30:18worker prior to going to see her and that sort of those little things like that really showed how
30:24selfish he was how much he was concerned with himself above and beyond anyone else
30:29the chief instructor at netheravon airfield had been the first at the scene of victoria lying on the
30:35ground he had scooped up the parachute after victoria had gone but very quickly noticed that
30:41something was just not right about the parachute and that he could see that certain aspect to the
30:47act the parachute was actually missing so on the monday he called police i happened to be working on cid
30:54at the time in salisbury and his call came through to the cid office as i was almost the only
31:00officer
31:01that was working on that day the call fell to me at that time it wasn't a criminal investigation it
31:08was a
31:09let's scope this out let's see what's happened is there anything there you know we'll talk to victoria
31:14we'll talk to some people up there we'll get the parachute examined and then we'll assess it from
31:19there so that was the initial initial phase of it if you like
31:25so in terms of a forensic investigation especially one which involves physical evidence then that can
31:31provide clues in the terms of an investigation so where we have a damaged parachute then not only can
31:39we examine the damage itself but we can potentially link that to a tool that may have been used to
31:46cause that damage the dna technology that we use today is very sensitive it can recover dna from a
31:55matter of a few cells so it means that we can wipe a swab or apply a small piece of
32:02sticky tape to
32:03an area and speculatively recover the dna of an individual the british parachute association had
32:12a look at the parachute and they came back to us and said look we can find nothing wrong with
32:18a
32:18parachute but we can't rule out someone manually interfering with it so that was a massive red flag
32:25then because there had been a reasonable explanation they would have found it this obviously led me to
32:30think well who else is involved who else could be involved with this netheraven parachute center is
32:37a military base which means that to get onto the base and onto the parachute center you have to have
32:42id and you have to go through security to get there so this narrowed down the amount of people who
32:49could
32:49have been involved quite quickly we started to look at the last people who had been anywhere near that
32:54parachute and of course emil silliers was one of the last people to touch that parachute so we were
33:01interested in him no more than that initially at the same time as that came in we were approached by
33:09a very good friend of victoria's after hearing about this incident her friends one in particular
33:18decides that they really ought to let the police know that all wasn't well in the marriage
33:21i took that call and that call was to change everything victoria's friend who was also a
33:29captain in the army said that she was not happy with the situation that emil and victoria did not
33:35have the happy marriage that outwardly they appeared to she said she'd seen so much about him that made
33:40her very suspicious about his actions on that day she actually said that if he had been anywhere near the
33:47parachute then she would be concerned that he was involved that point emil does need to be spoken to
33:54you could just treat him as a witness or you could treat him as a suspect the benefits sometimes of
33:59treating people as a suspect is you get powers of search off the back of that of the house of
34:03their
34:04work place etc as a person charged that investigation my gut feeling was i wanted him arrested i wanted that's
34:12all control and i wanted the powers of search so i made the decision at that point we would arrest
34:17him
34:17and interview him from what you've found and laid out emil sillier's reaction to being arrested and
34:29questioned is revealing isn't it it's so revealing so when police do decide that they're going to go
34:36and arrest him he's actually at work so he's a physical trainer for the army by this point
34:42and he is furious that police have dared to arrest him in in front of his subordinates because he's
34:51losing face because he's he's losing face and also losing control and one thing emil sillier hates is
34:58to lose control of a situation when a prisoner is booked in they're always given the opportunity of a
35:05solicitor emil however said i don't need a solicitor i'll happy to go to interview right now
35:13so we went to interview thinking that he would say no comment because that's something that's very
35:17common as well but not emil he wanted to talk and he wanted to tell us everything and he talked
35:24for six
35:25hours he says things you know i'm a i'm a good father to my children but i know i'm a
35:31bad husband
35:31i don't love vicky i want to be away away from vicky i want to leave her i'm in love
35:36with steph
35:37i want my life to be with her he talks about his relationships with other women you know both at
35:43swinging parties and the sex workers it's almost as if he's trying to include you in it and be a
35:49bit
35:50you know lads together you're police i'm military we all know what it's like but it's such an extreme
35:56version of what he's doing this is just putting up loads of red flags when you consider he'd been
36:01arrested for attempting to murder his wife most people would be nervous the first thing they would
36:07do would be to protest their innocence and say i don't know why you think this has happened but not
36:12emil at no time did he protest with any urgency that he had not tried to kill his wife
36:19at no point do i think it ever occurs to him or sinners that he's going to be outfoxed by
36:25the police
36:25he thought he was cleverer than that yes absolutely i think he thinks that they're not
36:29going to be able to unpick this one he thinks he's got away with a perfect murder yes absolutely
36:39victoria's at home so she's been in hospital for two weeks or so we sat down i explained to her
36:44about
36:44he denied maternity of his little boy that he had and he was having a infatuation with another female
36:51but i wouldn't tell her who it was and he wanted to leave her i said for these things cause
36:55me grave
36:56concern and that i can't allow to be here with you because i've got you know i've got a duty
37:03of care
37:03to yourself also duty of care to other females and duty of care to investigate this now because if he
37:09has done this then you're at risk and at that moment she just broke down completely i think
37:17that's probably the first time when she faced up to what our marriage and relationship had been all
37:22about and then when we went to leave that's when she said well she says now you've told me that
37:27you
37:28better know about the gas leak so we had no knowledge of that at all until that point so absolute
37:35double
37:36whammy but after that she very much closed down and she would never accept that emile was guilty
37:45and she wanted us to start an investigation in september 2016 emile sillier was charged with two counts of
37:57attempted murder of his wife victoria
38:20the case came to trial almost two years later and even then sillier might have got away with it
38:30when we get to court emile sillier turns up he looks like he's dressed from savile row
38:36he's in a three-piece suit he has a tie pin and he is immaculate every day he's at court
38:42he is
38:43immaculate but he's also incredibly laid back and when he's there and he swans around court like he
38:50owns it not a care in the world he would sit in the dock at the back and he chew
38:55gum looking bored
38:58not really paying any attention to the evidence that was given almost as if this is just pointless
39:03i'm clearly innocent and i'll be walking out of here why are you wasting my time and he never changed
39:08from
39:09that demeanor there was one point where we were waiting for something and wondering where emile was
39:14and he was downstairs chatting up this young lady from another court hearing you know sat next to her on
39:20the public benches downstairs during the first trial victoria silliers was called to the stand
39:26to give her a version of what had happened as soon as she took to the stand she started to
39:31go back
39:32on what she had told police she said that she hadn't been given time to read her statement before
39:37being forced to sign it she said that police hadn't kept her informed and that in actual fact emile
39:44had not spent as long in the toilets with the parachute as she initially claimed she then also
39:49said that she thought she had cut away a good parachute and we're sitting there thinking i don't
39:54understand i don't i get you were ever going to accuse emile of anything but i didn't understand why
40:01she spoke out against us so vociferously uh and that damaged that did damage the case a lot
40:11in truth of it i think victoria being a very very smart woman suddenly thought what happens if emil
40:19doesn't get convicted he's going to be at liberty to harm me again he would try for a third time
40:24yes
40:25that he would try for a third time so she wanted to appease that characteristic of his nature to say
40:31i'm not against you and actually this has all been a massive mistake because i think she was genuinely
40:35frightened we had a clinical psychologist assess emil silliers and he assessed him as a narcissistic
40:44psychopath and a very dangerous one at that but emil had an amazing hold over women and they end up
40:52in this coercive and controlling relationship where they are just pawns in his game
41:01ultimately the judge decided to declare her what's known as a hostile witness this means that
41:07her video interviews would be played in full for the court and for the jury
41:11and she could be then questioned about those videos the jury couldn't reach a verdict it deadlocked and
41:20after two of the jury members pleaded to be released from service because they were suffering from
41:25extreme stress the whole jury was discharged and the trial was stopped a new trial was started within a
41:34month in the first trial we had tried to spare victoria's blushes but for the second trial the jury
41:41needed to know what sort of man emil silliers really was we had not brought in the fact that emil
41:47silliers
41:47visited sex workers he visited swinging parties he was a really unpleasant individual but we had to
41:54bring all this in because the jury had to know i was allowed to give evidence and i was asked
42:02about
42:03coercive control so i explained about how police try and deal with coercive control how domestic violence
42:09isn't just about black eyes and the obvious it's more subtle and it's a lot more insidious than that
42:15and she was a victim of this so when vicky gave evidence and she said the same thing the second
42:21time
42:21there was a balance to it that the jury could see i think they understood her position then
42:27by the end of the second trial we had done everything we possibly could
42:33thankfully the jury saw through emil and he was found guilty
42:39he showed no remorse at all even at sentencing when the judge sentenced him to life in prison
42:45with a minimum of 18 years he didn't bat an eyelid there was absolutely no expression on his face
42:51whatsoever at the end of the second trial it was three years since day one you just wanted to jump
42:58up and down and scream and punch the air and say yes you know but you have to retain that
43:02professional
43:04outlook and sit there and smile i was emotionally and physically exhausted when that jury came up with
43:11the first word of guilty i broke down i broke down in tears i just couldn't contain it any longer
43:17this had been three years of hard graft but we got where we needed to get we had got a
43:23very very
43:23dangerous man behind bars and behind bars for a very long time it's nice to sit back i think you've
43:35had a really big case in your career and you've actually brought it home and you've got a conviction
43:39from it it's you know that what you join fraud originally you know i joined to lock up bad people
43:46and at the end of my career i got a chance to take on someone who was truly evil truly
43:50horrible
43:52it would take a lot of work to try and rehabilitate somebody with those kind of personality traits
43:57there's often some research that shows even sort of giving treatment to psychopaths actually makes
44:03them some extent worse so they actually can then learn the emotional ways to manipulate people so
44:08whether he can be rehabilitated is really kind of a long-standing question that goes against lots of
44:14people of his type of personality in your analysis what made the difference between his plan for a
44:29perfect murder and the conviction which proved it was an almost perfect murder he vastly underestimated
44:38the investigation team who were dogged in their efforts to get evidence that would help secure a
44:47conviction i think he underestimated victoria he must have been delighted when the first trial failed
44:54but he underestimated the people that loved and supported victoria and he most certainly underestimated
45:00the investigation team the undoing of emil silliers is a very interesting question i would suggest his
45:07supreme confidence the fact that he talked for six hours he told us everything during that initial
45:13interview that he thought we would find on his phone his computers his laptop but he gave us far too
45:19much
45:20information and this was to his detriment ultimately when we were able to prove his lies emil sillier may still
45:28proclaim himself to be a victim he isn't the real victims of victoria obviously but beyond that the six
45:38children emil sillier fathered and who have to grow up knowing that their dad was a would-be murderer
45:50their emotions their needs their psychological state often gets lost and i wish more sensitivity was shown
46:01and more attention was paid to them emil silliers must have thought by tampering with her parachute
46:10he was going to commit the perfect murder nobody would have suspected him if she was dead and wasn't there
46:16to
46:17talk that murder would have been perfect
46:22you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:48you
46:51you
46:53you
46:53you
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