Prince Harry, youngest son of King Charles III, was not unduly deprived of publicly funded private security for his visits to the UK after stepping down from his role as a working member of the royal family and move to the United States, a London judge determined on Wednesday.
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Judge Peter Lane of the High Court concluded that the decision to assess Harry’s safety on a case-by-case basis did not break the law, nor was it irrational or unjustified. ““The ‘tailored’ process devised for the plaintiff in the February 28, 2020 decision was, and is, legally sound,” the judge wrote in his 52-page ruling.
He The Duke of Sussex stated that he and his family had faced dangerous situations during their visits to the country due to hostility on social media and constant media persecution of him and his wife. His lawyer argued that the government team tasked with assessing Harry’s security needs had acted irrationally and had not followed its own protocols, which required a risk analysis on the duke’s safety.
By contrast, A government lawyer claimed that Harry had been treated fairly and was still protected during some of his visits. As an example, he mentioned that in June 2021, when he was chased by photographers after attending an event with sick children at Kew Gardens in west London, he was provided with an escort.
The committee that decided to reject his request for security considered the broader impact his mother’s “tragic death” had on the nation, the late Princess Diana, and in making her decision, she prioritized the “possible significant public unrest if there was a successful attack” against her son, lawyer James Eadie explained.
At 39 years old, Harry is the youngest son of King Charles III and defied royal family tradition by taking his disputes with both the government and tabloids to courtin an effort to hold editors accountable for harassing him throughout his life.
This claim was one of six brought by Harry to the High Court. Three of them were related to his security needs, while the other three were against tabloid publishers accused of hacking mobile phones. and use private investigators to obtain stories about his life.
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In his first case brought to trial, Harry won a major victory last year against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, which was facing allegations of illegal phone access. This resulted in a favorable verdict and eventually a settlement of other pending charges. Although the terms of the settlement were not publicly disclosed, it was agreed that the company would reimburse all of Harry’s legal expenses and he would be awarded an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000).
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He recently dropped a defamation lawsuit against the Daily Mail linked to an article suggesting Harry was trying to hide his efforts to continue receiving state-funded security. The withdrawal of the lawsuit came after a judge determined that Harry was more likely to lose at trial because the publishing company could prove that documents filed on his behalf were misleading and that a February 2022 article reflected a ” sincere opinion” and was not defamatory.
However, last year Harry failed to persuade another judge that he should be able to personally pay London police for protection during his visits to the city. The judge dismissed this request after a government lawyer argued that the agents should not act as “private bodyguards for the wealthy.”
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