Prince Harry’s legal fight with the Home Office over decision barring him from paying for UK police protection for him and his family ‘has cost the taxpayer more than £100,000’
- The Duke of Sussex, 37, has been taking legal action against the Home Office
- He argued that he is ‘unable to return to his home’ because it is too dangerous
- But legal battle has cost Home Office £90,094.79 between September and May
- Sum expected to rise further after Harry granted part of claim for judicial review
Prince Harry’s legal battle with the Home Office over police protection for the Sussexes has cost the taxpayer £100,000 so far, it was claimed today.
The Duke of Sussex, 37, has been taking legal action against the department after being told he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security when visiting from the US.
His representatives have previously told of how he wants to bring wife Meghan Markle and their children Archie and Lilibet to visit from the US, but that they are ‘unable to return to his home’ because it is too dangerous.
The case is understood to have cost the Home Office £90,094.79 from September 2021 and May earlier this year. That sum is understood to include £55,254 on the government’s Legal Department, £34,824 on counsel and £16.55 on couriers, The Sun reports.
Two hearings have taken place at the High Court in London since May, so it is predicted that the total bill will surpass £100,000. And that figure will rise further after a judge granted Harry’s legal team permission for part of his claim to have a judicial review into the Home Office’s decision.
The cost to the taxpayer would be reduced if the Home Office is awarded its costs back by the court and the Whitehall department run by Priti Patel has already said it will demand their legal costs back from Harry if his High Court battle to overturn a decision to deny him 24/7 Met Police protection fails.
MailOnline has asked Schillings, the Duke of Sussex’s UK lawyers, and the Home Office to comment.
Harry and Meghan, pictured arriving at the public walkabout at the Rotorua Government Gardens in October 2018, flanked by security guards. Harry has taken the UK Home Office to court over the level of security proposed in Britain after they quit as frontline royals
Harry’s representatives have argued that the family are ‘unable to return to his home’ to the UK because it is too dangerous
The legal battle at the High Court is understood to have cost the Home Office £90,094.79 between September 2021 and May – and will soon go over £100,000
Last week Harry won the right to bring a High Court challenge against the Home Office over his security arrangements in the UK.
The Duke of Sussex launched legal action after he was told he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security while on visits after stepping back from Royal Family duties and moving to the US.
He wants a review of the decision not to allow him to pay for police protection for himself and his family while in the UK.
A High Court judge said Harry had an ‘arguable’ case on four of the five grounds on which he brought the claim, and that his lawyers will be able to make his arguments at a judicial review of the Home Office decision.
Justice Jonathan Swift said at the Royal Courts of Justice in London: ‘The application for permission to apply for judicial review is allowed in part and refused in part.’
Harry’s claim that he should have been told exactly who made the decision, so he could question their ‘appropriateness’, was rejected by the judge.
His barrister, Shaheed Fatima QC, told the High Court the duke was not informed ‘the Royal Household’ had been involved in the decision by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) to deny automatic security, after originally being told ‘it was an independent decision’.
The judge noted that the royal’s lawyers had claimed he ‘should have been told who the members of Ravec were’, and ‘had the opportunity to make representations to Ravec’s chairman Sir Richard Mottram on the appropriateness of certain individuals’.
But Judge Swift said while the prince ‘may have had disagreements with Ravec committee members, there was no evidence any had approached decisions with a closed mind’.
The duke’s challenge concerns the February 2020 decision of Ravec that he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security when visiting since quitting the UK and his royal duties.
The Duke of Sussex has won a bid to bring part of his High Court claim against the Home Office over his security arrangements while in the UK. Above: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are pictured together in Brixton, south London, in 2018
Home Secretary Priti Patel pictured at Goodwood Festival on Tuesday. The Home Office has said it will recover the costs if it loses the legal dispute
Previously he had protective security at the second highest level, when Ravec deemed it ‘a proportionate response to the likelihood of an attack and the impact of a successful attack’.
But after his official role ended and he became ‘a privately funded member of the Royal Family with permission to earn his own income and pursue his own charitable interests’, Ravec withdrew guaranteed police support.
Ravec chairman Sir Richard said in a letter to the Queen’s private secretary that while the committee would ‘continue to monitor the security of the Sussex family’, the ‘existing provision by the Metropolitan Police will be withdrawn… there is no basis for publicly funded security support’.
Harry said he only discovered the extent of the change when he made one of his rare visits to England in June 2021, and was unhappy with arrangements made.
The prince is claiming there was ‘procedural unfairness’ in the decision over his security, because he was not given an opportunity to make ‘informed representations beforehand’.
The Home Office maintains Ravec was entitled to reach the decision that his security arrangements will be considered on a ‘case by case’ basis.
What is Harry’s concern with UK security and why is he taking legal action?
Are Harry and his family covered by security arrangements currently?
He and his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, personally fund a private protection team in the US for their family.
The Sussexes have signed multimillion-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify, with Harry telling Oprah Winfrey he secured these to pay for his security.
But he and Meghan lost their taxpayer-funded police protection in the UK in the aftermath of quitting as senior working royals.
Why did they lose their taxpayer-funded security?
Their security provision was one of the key issues when the couple announced they wanted to step down in 2020.
Speaking to Winfrey during the couple’s sit-down interview in 2021, Harry said he was told that ‘due to our change of status – we would no longer be ‘official’ members of the royal family’.
He said he had been shocked by this and ‘pushed back’ on the issue, arguing that there had been no change of threat or risk to the couple.
Meghan, during the same interview, told how she had written to her husband’s family urging them not to ‘pull his security’, but had been told ‘it’s just not possible’.
At the time of announcing their stepping back from royal life in 2020, their website suggested the Home Office, through the Metropolitan Police, should continue to provide protection for the couple and Archie, their only child at the time.
Have they offered to pay for police protection in the UK themselves?
Yes. Harry wants to fund the security himself, rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill, his legal representative said.
He first offered to personally pay for police protection in the UK for himself and his family during the so-called Sandringham summit in January 2020, but the legal representative said that offer ‘was dismissed’.
The representative added that Harry ‘remains willing to cover the cost of security, as not to impose on the British taxpayer’.
Can they use the same security team they have while in the US?
Harry’s legal representative said that while the couple personally fund a private security team for their family, ‘that security cannot replicate the necessary police protection needed whilst in the UK’.
His argument is that the US team does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep the Sussex family safe.
So what is Harry doing about the issue of his UK security now?
In September 2021, he filed a claim for a judicial review against the Home Office decision not to allow him to personally pay for police protection for himself and his family while in the UK.
His legal team said this course of action was taken ‘after another attempt at negotiations was also rejected’.
They said the judicial review bid is an attempt to ‘challenge the decision-making behind the security procedures, in the hopes that this could be re-evaluated for the obvious and necessary protection required’.
What threats do the couple see themselves as facing in the UK?
In a statement, the legal representative said: ‘He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats. While his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal Family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.’
Has the Home Office said anything about the bid for judicial review?
A Government spokesperson said: ‘The UK Government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements. To do so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.
‘It would also not be appropriate to comment on the detail of any legal proceedings.’
Will the couple return to the UK if the issue is not resolved in the way they would like?
A spokesperson for the duke has said that, in the absence of what they consider to be the necessary protection, ‘Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home’.
They insisted the UK ‘will always be Prince Harry’s home’, adding that it is ‘a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in’.
But they added: ‘With the lack of police protection, comes too great a personal risk.’
Source: Read Full Article
