Prince Harry Loses U.K. Legal Challenge Over Private Police Protection

Prince Harry has lost a legal challenge in the U.K. over paying for private police protection according to the Press Association.

The prince, who is also known as the Duke of Sussex, had attempted to launch a judicial review over the decision to reject his bid to privately hire members of the U.K. police force for his (and his family’s) personal protection.

A judicial review is a court process that examines the way in which a decision has been reached by a public body. It does not consider the merits of the decision itself.

When Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex took a “step back” from the Royal Family by relocating first to Canada and then to California, they lost their entitlement to publicly-funded police protection.

Harry offered to pay for the police protection himself but his offer was turned down by Ravec, a committee that decides on police protection for royals and other public figures, who feared it would set a precedent for rich people being “permitted to ‘buy’ protective security,” effectively using Metropolitan Police officers as private body guards, said the Home Office’s legal team.

According to Harry’s lawyers, however, Ravec did not have “the power to make this decision in the first place.” He therefore applied for a judicial review to challenge how they reached their decision and whether they had the right to make it. The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, has now refused permission for the judicial review to go ahead.

Last Tuesday Harry’s legal team attended a one-day hearing in London’s High Court in front of Mr Justice Chamberlain to advance their argument.

The following day Harry’s spokesperson unexpectedly released a statement that the prince, Meghan and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland had been involved in a “near catastrophic” two-hour car chase with paparazzi through Manhattan after Meghan was honored at an awards ceremony in the city. The New York Police Department disputed this account, however, describing the situation as “challenging” but that the group had eventually “arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams called the chase “a bit reckless and irresponsible” but added “I would find it hard to believe that there was a two hour high speed chase.”

Prince Harry still has another legal challenge over private security pending against the U.K.’s Home Office as well as numerous other legal wrangles with newspaper publishers including the Mirror Group Newspapers over phone-hacking claims and Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, over claims they bugged his car and hacked his bank account. Both newspaper publishers strongly deny Harry’s claims.

He is also embroiled in another legal row with the Mail on Sunday over a “defamatory” article regarding his bid to pay for private security.