An army sergeant who tried to kill his Scots wife by tampering with her parachute has been jailed for life.

Emile Cilliers has been ordered to serve at least 18 years in jail after being found guilty of the attempted murder of Victoria Ciliers.

Victoria, a highly experienced parachuting instructor, from Haddington in East Lothian, suffered near-fatal injuries when both her main and reserve parachutes failed when she took part in a jump at the Army Parachute Association at Netheravon, Wiltshire.

In an earlier incident, he had tampered with gas mains at the home they shared.

A soft patch of newly ploughed field was the only thing that saved her life on Sunday, April 5, 2015.

Emile, 38, was sentenced after being found guilty two counts of attempted murder at Winchester Crown Court on Friday.

He was led from the court in silence after being handed a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 18 years.

Sentencing the army sergeant, Mr Justice Sweeney said he was a "danger to the public" and added: "This was wicked offending of extreme gravity.

"Your offending was extremely serious with your two attempts to murder your wife. They were planned and carried out in cold blood for your own selfish purposes which include financial gain.

"You have shown yourself to be a person of quite exceptional callousness who will stop at nothing to satisfy his own desires, material or otherwise.

"Nor have you shown the least sign of remorse."

Describing the effect on Mrs Cilliers, who asked for her victim impact statement not be made public, the judge said: "That your wife recovered at all was miraculous, she undoubtedly suffered severe physical harm and she must have suffered psychological harm in the terror of the fall and since.

"She appears to have recovered from the physical harm but not, having seen her in the witness box in length, from the psychological harm."

The trial heard Cilliers, who had "out of control" debts racked up by taking his lover on expensive holidays, first attempted to kill his wife by tampering with a gas valve at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, at the end of March 2015.

After his wife discovered the gas leak, Cilliers, who was also in contact with prostitutes and seeing his former wife for sex, made a second attempt on Mrs Cilliers' life by sabotaging both her main and reserve parachutes, causing her to fall 4,000ft to the ground, which she "miraculously survived".

Elizabeth Marsh QC, defending, said: "Mr Cilliers himself accepted that since the spring of 2015 many aspects of his life were out of control, we might characterise his life as being chaotic."

She said he had addressed his financial situation and reduced his debt from £23,000 to £10,000 through "his own hard work and industry".

She continued: "He became a creditworthy example to the armed forces and it's a tragedy for him that he has destroyed that."

Following the conviction, police and prosecutors described the defendant as "very dangerous, coercive and manipulative".