The incident happened as the Queen spent Christmas Day at Windsor Castle. (File)
London:
A man told a British court on Friday that he wanted to “wound” Queen Elizabeth II after sneaking into Windsor Castle armed with a loaded crossbow on Christmas Day in 2021.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, who was detained on the grounds of the royal residence while the late queen was there, pleaded guilty to three charges at a criminal court hearing.
They include part of the 180-year-old Treason Act, which admits “intent … to injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, or to alarm Her Majesty”.
He was also charged with making a threat to kill the Queen and having a loaded crossbow, an assault weapon, in a public place.
Chail, from southern England, is said to have told a security officer when he was arrested that he was “here to kill the Queen”.
He planned an attack in revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Indians by British colonial forces, previous hearings revealed.
He had broadcast a video saying he would kill the monarch, who passed away peacefully on September 8 at the age of 96 after a year of ill health.
The unemployed former supermarket worker was due to go on trial over the incident in Windsor, west London, later this year.
But when he appeared via video link from the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital at the capital’s Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, he admitted all three charges.
He is now due to be sentenced in the same court on March 31.
The incident happened when the Queen spent Christmas Day at Windsor Castle that year with her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and his wife Camilla.
It is understood that some two hours before he was detained, Chail had climbed the perimeter of the site using a nylon rope ladder.
He was said to be wearing a hood and mask and carrying a crossbow loaded with an arrow, with the safety catch off and ready to fire.
In the latter case, Briton Marcus Sarjeant was sentenced to five years in prison in 1981 after pleading guilty to firing blank shots at the monarch when she was on parade.
However, William Joyce – also known as Lord Haw Haw, who collaborated with Germany during World War II – was the last person to be convicted under the separate and more serious Treason Act of 1351.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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