Prince Harry has made a strong move against the British government and threatened legal action if he and his family are not provided with security when they are in the UK. Losing access to police protection instead of private security was one of the downsides of Harry and his wife Meghan Markle stepping down as working royals two years ago.
The Daily Mail reports that the lawyers that the Sussexes have obtained have written a ‘pre-action protocol’ letter to the Home Office and will be taking steps to reinstate police security. According to Harry, private security does not have “adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep the Sussex family safe.”
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“The UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in,” Harry’s legal representative said in a statement. “With the lack of police protection, comes too great a personal risk. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex personally fund a private security team for their family, yet that security cannot replicate the necessary police protection needed whilst in the UK. In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home.”
The Queen has been told about the legal proceedings, and this could be the first time that a member of the Royal Family has brought legal action against Her Majesty’s Government. “Harry’s argument in a nutshell is: ‘You got the law wrong.’ He feels the decision to remove his security was wrong. Pre-action protocol was sent by Harry’s lawyers to the Home Office a couple of months ago. This is essentially a precursor to a judicial review,’” an insider explained. “When Harry came back last April for Prince Philip’s funeral, he was given security. But when he came back in the summer, he wasn’t.”
Harry addressed the issues over security in his bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, expressing his worries about his wife and their children. The family had been living in Canada at the time of “Megxit,” and they had originally presented the idea of a “new working model” where they were “internationally protected people,” but this idea was shot down by the Queen.
“The biggest concern was that while we were in Canada, in someone else’s house, I then got told at short notice security was going to be removed… Their justification is a change in status, of which I pushed back and said, ‘Well, is there a change of threat or risk?’” Harry told Oprah. “And after many weeks of waiting, eventually I got the confirmation that no, the risk and threat hasn’t changed but [it was] due to our change in status, [by] which we would no longer be official working members of the Royal Family… My family literally cut me off financially and I had to afford security for us.”
