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London (AFP) – Police charged a 20-year-old man with breaching Britain’s Treason Act 1842 on Tuesday after arresting him armed with a crossbow at Windsor Castle as Queen Elizabeth II spent Christmas Day there.
Jaswant Singh Chail, from Southampton in southern England, was also charged with death threats and possession of an offensive weapon following the incident at the Castle, south-west London, the year last.
He is currently in police custody and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the UK capital on August 17, London’s Metropolitan Police have announced.
“The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) have authorized the Metropolitan Police to charge Jaswant Singh Chail with offenses following his arrest in the grounds of Windsor Castle on December 25, 2021 carrying a crossbow,” said Nick Price of the CPS, who oversees prosecution in England. and Wales, said.
“This decision was made following an investigation by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command,” he added.
Chail was charged under a section of the Treason Act, which makes it an offense to assault the Queen, or to have a firearm or offensive weapon in her presence with intent to injure or alarm him, or cause a breach of the peace.
It is extremely rare for charges to be brought under this particular 180-year-old treason law.
In the latest case, Briton Marcus Sarjeant was sentenced to five years in prison in 1981 after pleading guilty to firing blanks at the monarch as she paraded.
However, William Joyce – also known as Lord Haw Haw, who collaborated with Germany in World War II – was the last person to be convicted under the separate and more serious Treason Act 1351. .
Following the Windsor Castle incident, the Met said security processes were triggered moments after the breach and the individual did not enter any buildings.
It happened as the Queen spent a low-key Christmas day at the castle with her eldest son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, and his wife Camilla.
The Queen usually celebrates Christmas at her Sandringham estate in the east of England, but she stayed in Windsor last year as a precaution amid resurgent cases of Covid-19.
Although the intruder was intercepted quickly, it was reminiscent of an earlier, more serious intrusion in 1982.
On this occasion, a man in his 30s entered Queen Elizabeth’s private chambers at Buckingham Palace while she was in bed before police apprehended him.
Last summer, a man was arrested after climbing the gates of the Palace.
In 2020, a homeless man climbed his walls and lay down for the night on his land before being arrested.
© 2022 AFP
