Prince Harry Loses Bid to Pay for Police Protection in UK

Prince Harry misplaced a authorized problem on Tuesday in his quest to pay for police safety in Britain, days after he and his spouse, Meghan, have been caught in a much-disputed confrontation with photographers in New York Metropolis.

In one in every of two instances involving the prince’s safety, the Excessive Court docket in London rejected Harry’s request for a judicial assessment of a choice by the Dwelling Workplace to reject his utility to pay privately for defense from the Metropolitan Police when he and his household go to Britain.

Attorneys for the Dwelling Workplace contended that it was improper for cops, in impact, to be employed out as personal safety guards.

In the USA, Harry and Meghan are protected by bodyguards who’re licensed to hold weapons. However touring in Britain poses a specific problem as a result of their personal safety guards usually are not allowed to hold weapons.

The authorized representatives for Harry, often known as the Duke of Sussex, had argued that he and his household wanted that greater stage of safety when visiting Britain, and that the prince was keen to pay for it out of his personal pocket.

Harry misplaced his computerized police safety when he and Meghan stepped again from their duties as working members of the royal household in 2020. He’s additionally difficult the method by which the Dwelling Workplace declined to offer him with taxpayer-supported safety — a declare that has but to be determined.

The choice on paying for defense, which can’t be appealed, is a setback for Harry at a time when his safety has come beneath heightened scrutiny.

Final week, he and Meghan, together with Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, have been swarmed by photographers after they left an award ceremony in Midtown Manhattan. What occurred after that’s the topic of sharply conflicting accounts.

A spokeswoman for the couple described a “a close to catastrophic automobile chase by the hands of a hoop of extremely aggressive paparazzi.” However a taxi driver who briefly transported the three stated that there had been no automobile chase and no cause for his passengers to be frightened, though he acknowledged that they appeared to have been alarmed.

A spokesman for the New York Police Division stated that the photographers had posed a problem however added that the three had arrived at their vacation spot on the Higher East Facet with out “reported collisions, summonses, accidents, or arrests.”

At concern within the case in London is whether or not the Dwelling Workplace — by its Government Committee for the Safety of Royalty and Public Figures, recognized by the acronym Ravec — was entitled to reject Harry’s request to pay for safety, on condition that the police could be paid to patrol personal occasions like soccer video games.

“In my judgment, the brief reply thus far is that Ravec didn’t say that it could be opposite to the general public curiosity to permit rich people to pay for any police providers,” the choose, Martin Chamberlain, wrote in his 10-page ruling. “Its reasoning was narrowly confined to the protecting providers that fall inside its remit.”

Along with the safety instances, Harry is concerned in three lawsuits in opposition to the publishers of London tabloids — The Mirror, The Each day Mail, and The Solar — over allegations of cellphone hacking and different invasions of his privateness.

The messy encounter with photographers in New York thrust Harry and Meghan again into the headlines in Britain, a number of weeks after the prince made a fleeting, subdued look on the coronation of his father, King Charles III.

Some safety specialists have argued that Harry faces a heightened risk due to his declare, in his memoir, “Spare,” that he killed 25 Taliban fighters throughout two fight excursions as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan.

As a working royal, the prince stated that he by no means traveled with out three armed bodyguards. Throughout negotiations with palace officers over his new standing, Harry wrote in his memoir, he pleaded for the bodyguards to be left in place, even when he misplaced all the opposite royal perks.

“I supplied to defray the price of safety out of my very own pocket,” he wrote. “I wasn’t positive how I’d try this, however I’d discover a means.”