Prince Harry does not feel safe when he visits the UK

Harry’s lawyer Shahid Fatima said in London court on Friday that he did not feel “safe in the UK”. The Duke of Sussex, who immigrated to the United States with his wife and children, wants to take legal action to ensure they receive police protection when they visit his home country.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan retired from their royal duties in April 2020 and now live in California with their two young children. The British Home Office then refused to provide police officers for Harry’s security during the visits, although the prince wanted to pay for the operation himself.

Harry and Meghan use their own security team in the United States. However, they claimed that their UK security guards did not have sufficient authority and access to British intelligence to protect his family.

Home Office attorney Robert Palmer called Harry’s offer to pay for police protection “irrelevant”. “The personal protection of the police is not available on the basis of private funding,” he said. The relevant government committee will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to receive police protection, depending on why Harry is in the UK.

Harry had appealed the Home Office decision in September. It has not yet been decided whether there will be action.

On a visit to the UK last summer, paparazzi followed Harry’s car as he left a charity event in London. The next day, he and his older brother William unveiled a statue of their mother Diana, who died while fleeing the paparazzi in Paris in 1997, in the garden of Kensington Palace.