Skip to content 
Search

Latest Stories

Man sentenced to nine years for foiled crossbow attack on Queen

Jaswant Singh Chail pleaded guilty to three charges at a previous hearing, becoming the first person to admit treason in the UK in decades

Man sentenced to nine years for foiled crossbow attack on Queen

A man who confessed to attempting to kill the late Queen Elizabeth II after being found on the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow was on Thursday (5) given a nine-year sentence.

Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, will serve the first part of his term in the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, moving to prison when his mental health permits.


The former supermarket worker had "lost touch with reality so that he had become psychotic", said sentencing judge Nicholas Hilliard at London's Old Bailey court.

After breaking into the grounds of the queen's residence on Christmas Day 2021, Chail admitted to an armed officer at the scene that he was there "to kill the queen".

In a journal, he wrote that if he could not get the monarch, he would "go for" the "prince" as a "suitable figurehead", in an apparent reference to her son, the current King Charles III.

Chail pleaded guilty to three charges at a previous hearing, becoming the first person to admit treason in the UK in decades.

In the last such case, Briton Marcus Sarjeant was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 1981 after pleading guilty to firing blank shots at the queen when she was participating in a horseback parade in central London.

Chail, who appeared at court on Thursday wearing black combat trousers and a black shirt, also admitted to making threats to kill and possessing an offensive weapon.

- Chatbot relationship –

Judge Hilliard said on sentencing that Chail had also been "informed by the fantasy world of Star Wars" and mounted the planned attack dressed as a Sith Lord, wearing an iron mask and carrying a loaded crossbow.

Chail also believed that he was communicating with an angel via an AI chatbot and planned the attack as revenge for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Indians by British colonial troops, the judge added.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan previously said that "in addition to that fixation with a real historic event, the defendant demonstrated a wider ideology focused on destroying old empires spilling over into fictional events such as Star Wars".

After his arrest, it emerged that he had stated his intent in a video recorded four days earlier, which he sent to his phone contacts list about 10 minutes before he was apprehended.

Queen Elizabeth passed away peacefully nearly nine months later, on September 8, aged 96, after a year of failing health.

Chail's incursion happened while the queen was spending Christmas Day at Windsor Castle with Charles and his wife Camilla.

The would-be assailant, dressed in black and wearing a hood, gloves and metal mask, had scaled the perimeter of the grounds with a nylon rope ladder.

He was in the grounds for around two hours before being detained without resistance.

The crossbow in his possession was loaded and ready to fire, with its safety catch in the "off" position, according to the prosecutors.

Chail had previously applied to join the Ministry of Defence Police and the Grenadier Guards, in a bid to get close to the royal family, the court previously heard.

In the video shared with his contacts on Snapchat prior to entering the castle grounds, Chail said he was "sorry for what I've done and what I will do".

"I will attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, Queen of the Royal Family," he stated, referencing the 1919 massacre in India.

The death toll from that massacre remains disputed but hundreds were killed when British troops opened fire on a packed crowd in Amritsar.

(AFP)

More For You

Air India flight crash
Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft, operating flight AI-171 to London Gatwick, crashed into a medical hostel complex shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12.
Getty Images

Air India completes probe of fuel switches after crash, finds no faults

Highlights:

 
     
  • Air India’s inspection of fuel switch locking mechanisms found no issues.
  •  
  • DGCA and global airlines, including Singapore Airlines, also conducted similar checks.
  •  
  • Voice recordings suggest pilot actions are under investigation.
  •  
  • Preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults.
  •  
 

AIR INDIA’s inspection of the locking mechanism on the fuel control switches of its Boeing 787 fleet has found no issues, according to an internal communication circulated within the airline.

Keep ReadingShow less
Prevent programme needs 'urgent overhaul' after attack failures
Southport murder suspect Axel Rudakubana appears via video link at the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, Britain, October 30, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. Courtesy of Julia Quenzler/Handout via REUTERS.

Prevent programme needs 'urgent overhaul' after attack failures

BRITAIN's counter-radicalisation scheme Prevent needs to rapidly adapt to avoid mistakes which saw two men who had been referred to the programme go on to commit deadly knife attacks, a review concluded on Wednesday (16).

Prevent has been a key strand of Britain’s security apparatus since the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, with the aim of stopping radicalisation and preventing people from going on to commit acts of violence.

Keep ReadingShow less
Fauja Singh
Singh did not possess a birth certificate, but his family said he was born on April 1, 1911. (Photo: Getty Images)
Getty images

Accused in Fauja Singh death case arrested, sent to judicial custody

A CANADA-based man accused of fatally hitting 114-year-old marathoner Fauja Singh with an SUV in Punjab has been arrested and sent to judicial custody. Officials said the accused had returned to India just three weeks ago.

Jalandhar rural senior superintendent of police (SSP) Harvinder Singh told a press conference that 26-year-old Amritpal Singh Dhillon was arrested on Tuesday night and his vehicle was seized. He said police treated the case as a challenge and solved it within 30 hours.

Keep ReadingShow less
Indian Americans

A new survey shows growing cultural and emotional ties to India among US-born Indian Americans.

Getty Images

US-born Indian Americans show stronger ties to heritage: Survey

A NEW report has shown that Indian Americans born in the United States are displaying stronger identification with their Indian heritage than in previous years.

The 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, conducted online with 1,206 respondents, found that 86 per cent of US-born Indian Americans said that being Indian is “very” or “somewhat” important to them. This marks an increase from 70 per cent in 2020. The share who considered their Indian identity as “not too important” or “not important at all” dropped from 30 to 15 per cent.

Keep ReadingShow less
UK India call centre scam

The criminals used sophisticated tactics to disguise their identity

iStock

UK and India team up to bust call centre scam

THE National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed details of a “groundbreaking collaboration” with India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and American teams to bust a fraud call centre scam operating from Noida in north India that targeted British victims.

The international investigation began early last year after NCA officers in the US received information from Microsoft, which was compared with City of London Police’s Action Fraud Reports. The NCA and FBI Attaché in Delhi shared intelligence with the CBI, leading to “urgent action” and the arrest of two people.

Keep ReadingShow less