Man admits treason charge over Queen crossbow threat

A man who arrived at Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow and told a protection officer “I am here to kill the Queen” has become the first person in the UK to be convicted of treason since 1981.

Jaswant Singh Chail, 21 and from Hampshire, pleaded guilty to three charges, including one under the Treason Act. He was arrested on Christmas Day 2021, when the late monarch was living at Windsor.

Chail was hooded and wearing a mask when he was spotted. A police officer told The Sun that the ex-Co-op worker looked like someone from a “vigilante movie or like he was dressed for Halloween”.

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After he spotted Chail, a royal protection officer took out his Taser, and asked him: “Morning, can I help, mate?” Chail replied: “I am here to kill the Queen.”

Chail was carrying a handwritten note, which read: “Please don’t remove my clothes, shoes and gloves, masks etc, don’t want post-mortem, don’t want embalming, thank you and I’m sorry.”

In a video posted on Snapchat minutes before he entered the castle, he had said: “This is revenge for those who have died in the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. It is also revenge for those who have been killed, humiliated and discriminated on because of their race.”

The Jallianwala Baga shooting took place when British troops opened fire on thousands of people who had gathered in the city of Amritsar in India. The disputed death toll is “estimated by some to be as high as 1,000 people”, said the BBC.

Chail pleaded guilty to a charge under Section Two of the Treason Act that “on December 25 2021 at Windsor Castle, near to the person of the Queen, you did wilfully produce or have a loaded crossbow with intent to use the same to injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, or to alarm her Majesty”. He is due to be sentenced on 31 March.

The last person to be convicted under the 1842 Treason Act was Marcus Sarjeant. He was jailed for five years in 1981 after he “fired blank shots at the queen while she was riding down the Mall in London during the trooping the colour parade”, said The Guardian.