Prince Harry has made a big statement about his father, King Charles III, following his loss in the Court of Appeal regarding his security arrangements in the UK.
In an interview aired this afternoon (2 May) on the BBC, the Duke of Sussex said that the King no longer speaks to him: “He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff.”
Harry also said “for the time being it is impossible for me to bring my family back to the UK safely.”
He added, “There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family.”
Harry said he felt “let down” and called his court loss a “good old fashioned establishment stitch up”, blaming the Royal Household for having a hand in the decision to cut back his security.
When asked if he had requested his father, the King, to step in on the matter, Harry replied: “I never asked him to intervene – I asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their jobs.”
He also said that the way he was treated during the security review had “uncovered my worst fears.”
Back in 2020, when Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from their roles as working royals, their publicly funded security was reduced.
He later challenged that decision in court and showed up last month to make his case.
Harry’s lawyer, Shaheed Fatima KC, argued that his safety and life were “at stake,” and stressed that the court shouldn’t overlook the “human dimension” of the case.
However, the appeal was rejected today by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean, and Lord Justice Edis.
Vos acknowledged that Harry had raised some “powerful” points and that he may have been treated unfairly by the system, but he said there was no legal reason to overturn the decision to reduce his security.
“The duke was in effect stepping in and out of the cohort of protection provided by Ravec [Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures],” Vos said.
“Outside the UK, he was outside the cohort, but when in the UK, his security would be considered as appropriate.”
He added: “It was impossible to say that this reasoning was illogical or inappropriate, indeed it seemed sensible.”
Vos described Ravec’s decision as “understandable and perhaps predictable”, and continued: “From the Duke of Sussex’s point of view, I said that 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.
“That did not in itself give rise to a legal complaint.”