Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, lost the latest stage of his court battle Friday over having his official security detail downgraded when he visits the United Kingdom. Harry had been appealing a previous court ruling that let the British government scale back his tax-funded close protection detail, which came after his decision to step down as a working member of the royal family and move to the United States.
Throughout most of his life as a working royal, Harry received blanket personal protection provided by British police. In February 2020, after he stepped down from his senior royal duties, Harry and his family’s protection was downgraded to security measures to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Harry and his lawyers argued that private bodyguards, who cannot carry guns under British law and do not have access to the government’s security network, are not sufficient to protect him and and his family when they visit the U.K.
“The U.K. is my home,” Harry told the nation’s High Court in December 2023.
“The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the U.S. That cannot happen if it’s not possible to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil,” Harry said in 2023.
In 2024, Harry lost a legal challenge he filed against that earlier 2020 decision, but he was granted the right to appeal.
“I concluded, having studied the detailed documents, I could not say the duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for a challenge to” the court’s previous decision, Sir Geoffery Vos, the court’s Master of the Rolls, said Friday.
Harry did not attend Friday’s hearing.
