LONDON – Prince Harry has lost a long and bitter battle over the level of publicly funded security in the United Kingdom after a British court ruled he is not entitled to full royal protection.
Harry has tried to maintain the same level of security he had when he was a “working royal” – when he, like other senior royals, was entitled to protection from specially trained police officers who had access to British intelligence services.
But Harry's security status was downgraded in 2020 after he quit royal duties and moved to California. Publicly funded security protection will continue to be available to him, his wife and children when visiting the UK, but the Home Office said the level of security would be decided on a case-by-case basis.
In his 51-page ruling, Supreme Court Justice Peter Lane said the Royal and VIP Executive Committee's (Ravec) approach to protecting royals and public figures was neither irrational nor procedurally unfair. The judge said Harry's lawyers had “an inappropriate, formalistic interpretation of the RAVEC process.”
Harry has argued that the policy has made it difficult for him and his family to visit his home country. In a statement read to the judge by his lawyers in December, Harry said he viewed Britain as “my home” and a place that was “central to my children's legacy and a place where I want them to be.” feel just as at home.” You currently live in the USA. This cannot happen if it is not possible to protect them on British soil.”
“I cannot put my wife in danger in this way, and given my life experiences, I hesitate to put myself in unnecessary danger as well,” he wrote.
Harry has regularly framed his concerns in the context of the dangerous pursuit of his mother, Princess Diana, by paparazzi before her fatal car crash in Paris in 1997.
“I knew I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mother,” he said in his self-produced Netflix documentary.
When Harry made a transatlantic trip to Britain this month to visit his father, King Charles III, who had just been diagnosed with cancer, he was driven under police escort from Heathrow Airport to the royal residence of Clarence House.
The last time he was in the country with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and their two children Archie and Lilibet was in June 2022 for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. Harry and Meghan also attended Elizabeth's funeral without their children September of the same year.
This was one of two legal battles Harry has fought over his security arrangements. Last year he lost a separate lawsuit in which he was denied the opportunity to pay for British police protection for himself and his family during a visit. British government lawyers said wealthy people should not be allowed to “buy” police protection.