Marcus Sarjeant

Marcus Simon Sarjeant (born ) is a British man who fired six blank shots near Queen Elizabeth II as she rode down The Mall to the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London in 1981.

Background Sarjeant, who was from Capel-le-Ferne, near Folkestone, Kent, went to Astor Secondary School in Dover. He was a member of the Scouts, becoming local patrol leader before leaving to join the Air Training Corps in 1978. In the ATC, Sarjeant won a marksman's badge, and he owned an air rifle. After leaving school in May 1980 with seven CSE passes, Sarjeant applied to join the Royal Marines but left after three months, saying that officers bullied him. He also tried to join the Army but stayed only for two days of an induction course.

After failed applications to join the police and the fire brigade, he worked at a zoo and at an arts centre in Folkestone. Under the Youth Training Scheme he worked at a youth centre in Hawkinge. Friends reported that Sarjeant joined the Anti-Royalist Movement in October 1980. At the time of the incident at the Trooping the Colour, he was unemployed and living with his mother, while his father was working abroad. Sarjeant told them, "I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be a somebody".

Trial Sarjeant became the first person since 1966 to be prosecuted under the Treason Act 1842, and was brought to trial before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, on 14 September 1981. He pleaded guilty and Lord Lane, in sentencing him to five years' imprisonment, said that "the public sense of outrage must be marked. You must be punished for the wicked thing you did". He was found guilty of an offence under Section Two of the Treason Act in that he "wilfully discharged at or near Her Majesty the Queen a gun with the intent to alarm or distress Her Majesty."

Release After three years in prison which were mostly spent at HMP Grendon Underwood in Buckinghamshire, Sarjeant was released in October 1984 at the age of 20. He changed his name and began a new life. He had written to the Queen from prison to apologise for the shooting but did not receive a reply.