Prince Harry Loses Legal Bid to Pay for Family’s Police Protection in U.K.
23.05.2023 - 13:27
/ usmagazine.com
Prince Harry’s bid to hire police security when he is in Britain has been denied.
Following a hearing last week, a High Court judge in London ruled on Tuesday, May 23, that he would not give the 38-year-old prince the option to hire his own police protection when he is overseas. Harry has stated that he doesn’t feel safe in the U.K. with his children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 23 months, whom he shares with Meghan Markle, due to the attention from photographers.
“Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats,” his team said in a statement in January 2022 after Harry filed an application for judicial review after a Home Office decision ruled he cannot personally fund police protection. “While his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the royal family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.”
This month, the British government’s team argued in court that police officers are available for the public’s best interest and are not “private bodyguards for the wealthy.”
Harry and Meghan, 41, who wed in 2018, lost their security team when they stopped working for the British royal family in 2020 — a move the Duke and Duchess of Sussex didn’t see coming. In his memoir, Spare, he recalled that he “never” thought The Firm would no longer provide their royal security detail.
“Not in this climate of hate. Not after what happened to my mother [Princess Diana]. Also, not in the wake of my Uncle Andrew. He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman and no one had so