LONDON (Reuters) -Prince Harry on Friday lost his legal challenge to changes to his security arrangements made by the British government following his decision to step down from royal duties with his American wife Meghan.
Harry, King Charles’ younger son, had sought to overturn a decision by the Home Office – the ministry responsible for policing – which decided in February 2020 he would not automatically receive personal police security while in Britain.
Last year, the High Court in London ruled the decision was lawful and that decision was upheld by three senior Court of Appeal judges who said that, while Harry understandably felt aggrieved, that did not amount to an error of law in the decision.
Judge Geoffrey Vos said Harry’s lawyer had made “powerful and moving arguments” about the impact of the decision about his security.
“It was plain that the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system, but I conclude – having studied the detail of the extensive documentation – I could not say that the Duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for the challenge to RAVEC’s decision,” he told the court.
Harry, 40, who now lives in California with Meghan and their two children, attended two days of hearings in person in April, when his lawyer told the court that he had been singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment.
His lawyers said al Qaeda had recently called for him to be murdered, and he and his American wife Meghan had been involved in “a dangerous car pursuit with paparazzi in New York City” in 2023.
“One must not forget the human dimension to this case: there is a person sitting behind me whose safety, whose security and whose life is at stake,” his lawyer Shaheed Fatima told the court as Harry watched on.
“His presence here and throughout this appeal is a potent illustration, were one needed, of how much this appeal means to him and his family,” she said.
However, the government’s legal team said the bespoke arrangement for Harry, the Duke of Sussex, had positive advantages from a security assessment point of view.
(Reporting by Michael Holden and Sam Tobin; Editing by Catarina Demony and Hugh Lawson)
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