Windsor Castle crossbow intruder wanted ‘to kill the Queen’, court hears
A man who scaled the walls of Windsor Castle with a crossbow faced court on treason charges after allegedly admitting his assassination plans to police.
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The Queen’s private residences came within the line of sight a man who scaled the walls of Windsor Castle with a crossbow declaring he was there to kill the monarch, a London high court heard.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court to face two charges of treason for allegedly breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle on Christmas Day last year.
Chail, from Southampton in southern England, appeared via video link from Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital to confirm his name and location.
Prosecutor Kathryn Selby told the court that Chail, who was dressed in a hood and mask carrying a loaded crossbow with the safety catch off, came within line of sight of the Queen’s apartments while she was celebrating Christmas with Prince Charles and Camilla.
After being detained, Chail allegedly told a protection officer: “I am here to kill the Queen.”
The most serious charge he faces under the 180-year-old Treason Act is “intent … to injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, or to alarm her Majesty”.
Chail is also charged with making a threat to kill and possession of an offensive weapon.
The unemployed former supermarket worker was not required to enter pleas.
Prosecutors said he had previously attempted to join the Ministry of Defence Police and the Grenadier Guards infantry regiment, to get closer to the royal family.
He allegedly planned an attack as revenge for the treatment of Indians and had sent out a video saying he would assassinate the Queen.
Chail will be held in custody until his next court appearance, at London’s Old Bailey, on September 14.
Mr Chail was originally sectioned under the Mental Health Act after he allegedly breached the castle just 500-metres from the Queen’s private apartments.
Video allegedly filmed by Mr Chail and sent to friends on Snapchat showed a masked figure holding a black crossbow vowing revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, when British colonial troops shot and killed 379 protesters and wounded about 1200.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I’ve done and what I will do. I will attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, queen of the royal family,” the hooded figure in the video, obtained by The Sun, said.
“It is also revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated on because of their race.”
“I’m an Indian Sikh, a Sith. My name was Jaswant Singh Chail, my name is Darth Jones,” the person added, invoking Star Wars movie mythology.
The video was sent 24-minutes before Mr Chail was arrested by armed police. At the time, the Queen was understood to be celebrating Christmas with family before recording her Christmas Day message that paid tribute to her recently-deceased late husband, Prince Philip.
Nick Price, Head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said they authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Mr Chail “following an investigation carried out by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command”.
While he was investigated by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, prosecutors said his actions are not being treated as “terrorism”.
It is the first time in more than 40 years that someone has been charged under the 1842 Treason Act, which makes it an offence to assault the Queen, or have a firearm or offensive weapon in her presence with intent to injure or alarm her or to cause a breach of peace.
The last time it was used in 1981, Marcus Sarjeant was sentenced to five years prison after pleading guilty to firing blank shots at the Queen while she was riding down The Mall in London during the Trooping the Colour parade.
The breach on Christmas Day 2021 is almost as close as the famous 1982 intrusion when a man in his 30s enter the Queen’s private chambers at Buckingham Palace.
In the summer of 2019, a man was arrested after climbing over the gates of Buckingham Palace. In 2018, a homeless man scaled its walls and slept in the grounds before being caught
Two other men were also arrested for scaling the castle gates of the palace in 2020 and again in summer 2021.
- With AFP
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