Prince Harry loses appeal to restore government-funded security detail

Prince Harry lost his appeal on Friday challenging the UK government’s decision to strip him of his publicly funded security after he stepped away from royal family duties and moved to the US.

The Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that a committee hadn’t treated Harry unfairly when it decided to review his protection on a case-by-case basis each time he visits the UK.

Justice Geoffrey Vos said in a 21-page judgment that the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated and his lawyer had made powerful and moving arguments on his behalf. But he said that Harry’s grievance wasn’t legal grounds to challenge the decision to deny him regular security.

“From the Duke of Sussex’s point of view, something may indeed have gone wrong, in that an unintended consequence of his decision to step back from royal duties and spend the majority of his time abroad has been that he has been provided with a more bespoke, and generally lesser, level of protection than when he was in the UK,” Vos said. “But that does not, of itself, give rise to a legal complaint.”

The ruling is likely to leave the Duke of Sussex with a large bill to pay the UK government’s legal fees — in addition to his own lawyers’ costs.

It wasn’t immediately clear if he would try to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

The ruling upheld a High Court judge’s decision last year that found that a “bespoke” plan for the Duke of Sussex’s security wasn’t unlawful, irrational or unjustified.

Harry made a rare appearance for the two-day hearing last month as his lawyer argued that his life was in danger and the Royal and VIP Executive Committee had singled him out for inferior treatment.

“There is a person sitting behind me who is being told he is getting a special bespoke process when he knows and has experienced a process that is manifestly inferior in every respect,” attorney Shaheed Fatima said. “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.”

A lawyer for the government said that Harry’s argument repeated his misconceived approach that failed in the lower court.

“It involves a continued failure to see the wood for the trees, advancing propositions available only by reading small parts of the evidence, and now the judgment, out of context and ignoring the totality of the picture,” attorney James Eadie said.

Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, had stepped back from their official roles in the family in 2020, because they didn’t feel they were “being protected by the institution”, his lawyer said.

After doing so, a Home Office committee ruled there was “no basis for publicly funded security support for the duke and duchess within Great Britain”.

Harry claimed that he and his family are endangered when visiting his homeland because of hostility aimed at him and Meghan on social media and through relentless hounding by news media.

Since he lost his government-sponsored protection, Harry faced at least two serious security threats, his lawyer said in court papers. Al-Qaida had published a document that said Harry’s assassination would please Muslims, and he and his wife were involved in a dangerous pursuit by paparazzi in New York.

Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles III, has bucked royal family convention by taking the government and tabloid press to court, where he has a mixed record.

He lost a related court case in which he sought permission to privately pay for a police detail when in the UK. A judge denied that offer after a government lawyer argued officers shouldn’t be used as “private bodyguards for the wealthy.”

But he won a significant victory at trial in 2023 against the publisher of the Daily Mirror when a judge found that phone hacking at the tabloid was “widespread and habitual”. He claimed a “monumental” victory in January when Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloids made an unprecedented apology for intruding in his life for years, and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit.

He has a similar case pending against the publisher of the Daily Mail.