A man who was arrested with a crossbow at Queen Elizabeth’s home at Windsor Castle last Christmas said: “I’m here to kill the Queen”, according to information given to a British court on Wednesday.

Jaswant Singh Cheil, 20, who was charged under the UK’s High Treason Act, appeared on the grounds of Windsor Castle wearing a hood and a mask, the judges were told.

A police officer said he looked like someone from a vigilante movie.

The Queen was in the castle at the time of the incident on December 25, along with her son and heir Prince Charles, his wife Camilla and other close family members.

Following an investigation by anti-terrorist police, Cheil was charged with threatening to kill, possessing a weapon of war and an offense under section 2 of the Treason Act 1842.

The section refers to “firing or aiming a firearm, throwing or using any offensive object or weapon with intent to injure or alarm His Majesty”.

During a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, Cheil, from Southampton in southern England, said he wanted revenge on those who run the country.

In his first statements since the incident in December, he identified himself as a Sikh Indian and said he wanted “revenge” for a massacre by British troops against demonstrators in India in 1919.