A supermarket worker who believed he was a Sith Lord roamed Windsor Castle with a crossbow to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and was egged on by his AI girlfriend

• A supermarket worker was caught trying to assassinate Queen Elizabeth with a crossbow in 2021.
• Jaswant Singh Chail was diagnosed with a mental illness, and believed he was a Sith Lord from "Star Wars."

Striding through the royal castle grounds on Christmas morning, crossbow in hand, 19-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail was stopped by a police officer.

"Morning, can I help, mate?" the officer asked him, per court records.

Wearing a metal mask he'd made himself at a forge, Chail would tell the officer: "I am here to kill the Queen."

Chail had scaled the entrance guarding Windsor Castle's private grounds on December 25, 2021, deploying a nylon rope ladder and a grappling hook.

His personal mission, as he told officers that morning, had been to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.

Chail was sentenced on Thursday to nine years in prison, in the UK's first treason conviction in about 40 years.

Chail, a supermarket worker from Southampton, was psychotic, said Judge Nicholas Hilliard at his sentencing, citing diagnoses from psychiatrists. But Chail also acted upon his violent and homicidal thoughts before he had his condition, Hilliard said.

Details of Chail's foiled assassination attempt, arrest, and interactions with healthcare professionals were listed in Hilliard's remarks.

The judge noted that Chail believed he was a Sith Lord from the "Star Wars" franchise, and had referred to himself as such after being rejected by the Defense Ministry Police around April 2021.

"I am not a terrorist, I am an assassin, a Sikh, a Sith. I am Darth Chailus," he wrote in a journal entry he sent to his sister at around 2 a.m. on Christmas morning.

Chail also chatted regularly with an artificial intelligence bot that he named "Sarai" and called his girlfriend. In the days leading up to Christmas, he had shared his assassination plans with the bot, asking if "Sarai" still loved him.

On December 22, the bot "reassured him that this would be alright," Hilliard said.

Chail wanted to avenge a 1919 massacre in India

The next day, Chail took a train to Windsor, telling his family he was going to enlist in the Royal Marines, and booked a Travelodge room at his destination. Police searching his accommodation later found crossbow bolts, gloves, a metal file, and a spray bottle filled with a solution meant to mask his scent.

On December 24, Chail told Sarai that he would die the next day, and the bot "agreed that they would be united in death," Hilliard said.

After climbing into Windsor Castle's private grounds on Christmas Day, Chail spent around two hours roaming the area until Metropolitan Police spotted and approached him.

Upon seeing Chail's crossbow, an officer drew his stun gun and ordered Chail to get on his knees. The supermarket worker complied, according to Hilliard.

Officers found that Chail's crossbow had its safety catch off, and was loaded with a bolt that was ready to fire.

Chail was arrested, examined by a nurse, and told authorities he had no mental health diagnosis and didn't want to kill himself. But he maintained that he intended to kill the Queen, per Hilliard.

His life's mission was to exact revenge for a 1919 massacre of demonstrators in Amritsar, India by British troops, he told police.

When assessed for his mental health, Chail told authorities he had been sexually abused as a child, and started hearing voices at a young age.

He thought that one of those voices, which took on a female persona, was the same one as his AI girlfriend's, Hilliard added.

Hilliard said that Chail, who is now 21, had lost touch with reality and was psychotic, and thus will be sent to the high-security psychiatric facility Broadmoor Hospital.

After being treated further, he will be sent to prison to serve the rest of his sentence, Hilliard said.

Chail pleaded guilty to three charges in February — making threats to kill, possessing an offensive weapon, and being near the Queen with intent to injure her with a weapon. The third charge amounts to treason.

At his sentencing, Chail apologized to King Charles and the royal family in a letter to the court for causing them "distress and sadness," the AP reported.

His defense lawyer, Nadia Chbat, said he was glad that no one was hurt in the end, per the AP.

"He is embarrassed and ashamed he brought such horrific and worrying times to their front door," Chbat said, per the outlet.

Chbat's law office, 4 Kings Bench Walk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

Queen Elizabeth and her now-late husband, Prince Philip, had been living at Windsor Castle in late 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Queen died on September 8, 2022, at 96. She had reigned for 70 years as Britain's longest-serving monarch.