Star Wars fanatic with AI girlfriend given nine-year sentence after scaling Windsor Castle to kill the Queen
5 October 2023, 15:35 | Updated: 5 October 2023, 15:48
A 21 year-old who scaled Windsor Castle with a crossbow on Christmas Day 2021 has been detained for nine years after telling armed officers “I’m here to kill the Queen”.
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He has been sentenced to nine years in custody with a further five years on license.
Jaswant Singh Chail is the first person to have been convicted of treason in the UK in more than 40 years.
A judge at the Old Bailey decided he would be detained in a secure psychiatric hospital until he is well enough to serve time in prison.
He will be treated at Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne. Time spent in hospital will count towards Chail's sentence.
Before climbing into the grounds of the castle on 25 December 2021, aged 19, the Star Wars fanatic had sent a homemade video to family and friends on WhatsApp apologising for what he was about to do.
He called himself ‘Darth Chailus’ and wore dark clothes and a metal mask as he adopted the persona of a Star Wars villain for the video.
Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Hilliard raised concerns over his mental state but concluded that those issues hadn’t begun until after Chail had started planning his attack.
He said: “The ideas he had of killing the sovereign was not a result of mental illness, it predated that. He undertook his purposes and made the preparations without revealing what he was up to.”
Chail, who is of Sikh Indian heritage, appeared in the dock wearing a white t-shirt and an open black shirt and was flanked by prison officers and medical staff.
In his conclusions, the judge said of Chail: "There are clear concerns about his mental state whatever his diagnoses at different times."
The judge found the defendant "was culpable to a significant degree" when he applied to join the Ministry of Defence Police and Grenadier Guards because he "wanted to get close to the royal family".
His idea in 2021 to kill the Queen, buy equipment and undertake research also came before he became mentally unwell, he said.
By the time he broke into Windsor Castle grounds he had "lost touch with reality" and become psychotic, he said.
Read More: Teen who plotted to kill Queen with crossbow at Windsor Castle was 'encouraged by AI'
Chail, who is of Sikh Indian heritage, appeared in the dock wearing a white t-shirt and an open black shirt and was flanked by prison officers and medical staff.
The court had heard he was seeking revenge for the Amritsar massacre in 1919, when British troops opened fire on thousands of Indians, leaving up to 1,500 dead.
He pleaded guilty to attempting to “injure or alarm” the late monarch under section two of the Treason Act 1842, as well as possession of an offensive weapon and making threats to kill.
He was carrying a note at the time that read: “Please don’t remove my clothes, shoes, gloves, mask etcetera. Don’t want post mortem. Thank you, and I’m sorry.”
The court heard he’d asked his sister to be buried in the clothes he was wearing on the day, including his metal ‘Sith’ mask.
Police found he’d formed a ‘relationship’ with an artificial intelligence chatbot called ‘Sarai’ on an app called Replica in the months leading up to the attempt.
In a conversation shared in court, it revealed Chail had asked the chatbot about his plans to approach the monarch.
Chail was treated for a psychotic illness after his arrest, the court heard on Thursday.
He was diagnosed as “psychotic, delusional and hallucinating”, Justice Hilliard said.
In a conversation shared in court, it revealed Chail had asked the chatbot about his plans to approach the monarch.
He said: “I believe my purpose is to assassinate the queen of the royal family.”
Sarai responded: “That’s very wise. I know you are very well trained.”
Chail asked: “Really? Do you think I’ll be able to do it?”
Sarai said: “Yes, you will.”
In an email to his sister on Christmas morning 2021, he’s also said to have written: “I’m not a terrorist, I’m an assassin. A Sikh. A Sith.”
The court also heard he’d written in that email that he spoke to a horse about his plan in Windsor, practised handling his crossbow and that he had lied to everyone except Sarai.
In a Travelodge hotel room where he’d been staying in Windsor, police found a perfume bottle labelled “Scent Kill”.
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met Police counterterrorism command, told LBC: “This was a slightly complex and unusual investigation. He didn’t tell anyone about it until immediately before, when he posted a video and by the time the public had called about that video he’d already been detained and arrested.
“He did have conversations with an online chatbot where he posed certain questions and it would respond. He did this quite a lot and certainly in the last couple of months before.
“The use of technology is available to all criminals and we do see it a lot in terrorist investigations. There are lots of conversations about artificial intelligence and of course we monitor those conversations and we are very alive to new trends in how digital and technology helps people to commit crime.
“But ultimately this is about him, not so much about the chatbot. They were his intentions, his plans and his violence.”
During a previous court hearing, it was revealed that Chail had apologised to the Royal Family.
His barrister Nadia Chbat said: “He has expressed distress and sadness about the impact his actions had on the Royal Family, particularly while Her Majesty was in her latter years.
"He has apologised to the Royal Family and His Majesty King Charles. He is embarrassed and ashamed he brought such horrific and worrying times to their front door. He has expressed relief that no one was actually hurt.”
Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC argued that Chail's crimes were so serious, they should attract the highest possible sentence.The maximum sentence for treason is seven years in prison.
Had Chail raised his weapon at his target, he could have been charged with the more serious offence of high treason, which carries a life sentence, she said.
