Prince Harry loses legal fight over UK police protection

Prince Harry loses legal challenge against Home Office decision regarding police protection in UK.

Prince Harry has been dealt another blow to his bid to legally challenge a Home Office decision about using UK police as protection.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle were stripped of guaranteed police security when they stepped down from their roles as senior royals in 2020. 

Harry has offered to pay privately for police protection – an offer which was refused and Harry is looking to get overturned.

The Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) which deals with the protection of royalty and public figures, argued that public confidence would be undermined if it allowed a wealthy individual to pay for protective security measures that they would not receive if they were less wealthy.

On Tuesday, in a written judgment, Mr Justice Chamberlain refused Harry permission to legally challenge the decision.

The judgement read: “Ravec did not say that it would be contrary to the public interest to allow wealthy individuals to pay for any police services. It can be taken to have understood that section 25(1), to which it referred, expressly envisages payment for some such services. Its reasoning was narrowly confined to the protective security services that fall within its remit.”

The Duke is currently engaged in four separate cases against newspapers. Three regarding phone hacking and one case of libel against the Mail on Sunday.