Duke of Sussex taking legal action against UK government to allow him to pay privately for security
The Duke of Sussex believes the UK is too dangerous for him and his family to visit without state protection as it emerged he is taking legal action against the government to allow him to pay privately for police security while in Britain.
Prince Harry lost taxpayer-funded police security when he and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020. The couple pays for private security in the US, where they now live.
Harry is seeking a judicial review against a Home Office decision that prevents him personally paying for police protection for him and his family while in the UK.
His legal representative said the duke’s private security team did not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information required to protect him, his wife, and their children, Archie and Lilibet. They said the family had been subjected to “well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats”.
Responding to reports, first published by the Mail on Sunday, the representative said prince, who filed for judicial review in September, was “unable to return to his home” because it was too dangerous.
They added Harry had first offered to pay privately for Scotland Yard protection at the Sandringham summit in 2020, where senior royals and their aides met to hammer out the exit strategy for the Sussexes, but that his offer was dismissed.
If the case progresses, it will lead to a high court battle between ministers and Harry, thought to be the first occasion in modern times when a member of the royal family has brought a case against Her Majesty’s government.
The couple’s concerns follow an incident in London in 2021, when Harry returned to the UK for the unveiling of the statute of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and his car was reportedly chased by photographers as he left a charity event.
Harry’s legal threat comes ahead of his grandmother’s platinum jubilee, and raises questions over whether he and his family will attend celebrations in the UK over the jubilee bank holiday weekend in June.
