LONDON:- A British Army sergeant was on Thursday found guilty of attempting to murder his wife on two occasions, by tampering with her parachute and causing a gas leak at their home. The jury at Winchester Crown Court in southern England heard that Emile Cilliers, 38, loosened a gas valve at his home in March 2015, hoping his wife Victoria would turn on the cooker.–AFP

The couple’s two young children were in the house at the time, but the attempt failed. Less than a week later, the victim suffered severe injuries to her spine, leg and ribs after miraculously surviving a fall from 4,000 feet (1,200 metres) when her parachute failed.

Cilliers had taken the chute into a toilet cubicle at the airfield and sabotaged it, causing both the main and reserve chutes to fail.