Man arrested after handcuffing himself to Buckingham Palace gates

Police say man suffered a number of self-inflicted slash wounds after threatening to harm himself

A man has been arrested after handcuffing himself to the gates of Buckingham Palace and threatening to harm himself.

The man, believed to be in his 30s, approached the palace gates shortly before 5.30pm on Thursday.

Police officers spent several hours speaking to the man after being called to reports he had attached himself to the gate and was threatening to harm himself.

The man was later taken to hospital after suffering “a number of self-inflicted slash injuries”, Met Police said. He was then taken into police custody.

Video from the scene shows the man, dressed in black jeans, a white T-shirt and a baseball cap, outside the King’s official residence.

An officer can be seen speaking to him as others cordoned off the area and dozens of passersby watched on.

The man was arrested at 1am on Friday morning on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, the force said.

It comes after a man who threatened to kill the late Queen with a crossbow on Christmas Day 2021 appeared in court this week.

Self-styled “assassin” Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, was detained close to the late Queen’s private residence in Windsor Castle, where she and other members of the royal family were celebrating the holidays.

The former supermarket worker had scaled the perimeter of the grounds with a nylon rope ladder and was on the grounds for two hours before officers detained him.

On Wednesday, Chail appeared in the dock at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Hilliard, when a two-day sentencing hearing was planned.

The court was told how Star Wars-obsessed Chail, who described himself in a sinister video as a “Sith” and “Darth Jones”, confided his plan to an AI chatbot before setting out on the mission to kill the late Queen.

Sentencing had been due on Thursday but was delayed to a later date, which is yet to be determined.

The defendant was remanded into Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital.