Just hours after losing his well-known legal struggle to restore police protection while in the UK, Prince Harry took a scathing stab at those who had downgraded his security status, saying he had “uncovered shocking truths.”
Because the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) decided that he should be given a different degree of security, the California-based royal had contested the Home Office’s decision to dismiss his High Court claim.
However, that argument was dismissed by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, who supported Ravec’s initial decision.
Prince Harry seemed to criticise his father, King Charles III, in an unusual interview with the BBC on Friday. He claimed that when he learnt that the Royal Household was a member of the “secretive” committee, his “jaw dropped.”
He implied that the King and Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary, who worked on Ravec, could have done more.
Harry told the BBC: “There is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands.”
“Ultimately this whole thing could be resolved through him.”
Hours later, he reinforced that assertion in a statement criticising Ravec’s choice once more, calling it “a reckless action” that “knowingly put me and my family in harm’s way.”
Harry continued: “This legal action has been a last resort, but one that has uncovered shocking truths, starting with the fact that the Royal Household are key decision-makers on RAVEC and my sole representation for matters regarding my safety.”
“In this process I’ve also learned the names of all those involved, many of whom retired immediately after playing their part.”
He added: “To this present day, the Royal Household remain my sole representation on RAVEC for evert visit and could call for this assessment to be done at any point.”
“The only possible conclusion that can be drawn is they choose not to, because they know the outcome would prove that my security should never have been removed in the first place.”
Harry continued by describing how neo-Nazis and extremist organisations, such as Al-Qaeda, had threatened him and his family.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will receive a letter from the Duke of Sussex requesting that she “urgently examine the matter and review the Ravec process.”
Harry feels that since Megxit five years ago, he has been “singled out” and “badly treated” for “unjustified, inferior treatment.”
His lawyer had claimed that the royal’s life was “at stake” since the Met Police had removed their armed escorts while he was in the UK.
However, the duke’s “grievance” at reduced security had not “translated into a legal argument,” according to Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, and he finally failed.
When Harry and Meghan resigned as senior royals and departed the country, he declared that the initial security decision had been a “predictable” and even “sensible” response to Megxit.
It would have been ‘improper’ for the monarch to interfere with Harry’s security plans, according to a source close to the Buckingham Palace.
“These issues have been examined meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion on each occasion,” a spokeswoman stated.
A source added: “It would have been constitutionally improper for His Majesty to intervene while this matter was being considered by the Government and reviewed by the Courts.”
Following a shocking interview in which he revealed the specifics of his tense relationship with his father—which one royal analyst called a “sad and sorry saga”—Harry made his remarks about Ravec.
He ‘won’t speak to me’ and ‘doesn’t know how much longer he has left,’ according to the Duke of Sussex’s scathing attack on King Charles last night.
According to him, he has had “so many disagreements” with his family, some of whom “may never forgive” him for publishing a book. He also disclosed that he will not be bringing his wife or kids back to the UK.
According to royal analyst Professor Kate Williams, Harry’s BBC interview raised doubts about whether the ‘angry and resentful’ duke could ever mend his relationship with his father.
“This is a very significant moment in what will be written about by the historians of the future about Harry,” she told Sky News.
Jennie Bond, a former royal correspondent for the BBC, claimed that the Duke was “bristling with anger.”
She said: “And resentment. And mistrust of the royal household.”
“And despair over his father’s attitude, I suppose. It’s just such a sad and sorry saga.”
“I had hoped eventually there might be some kind of reconciliation, but clearly, although Harry says he wants reconciliation, he doesn’t see he can do that now.”
During his interview with the BBC, Harry said the King “won’t speak to me”, and claimed to be the victim of an “Establishment stitch-up.”
In addition, the Duke of Sussex charged that the Royal Household was “interfering” in his ongoing legal battle to have his police bodyguards reinstated in His Majesty’s courts.
He made the remarks in a harsh interview with the BBC following yesterday’s court decision against him.
Harry said that he would never bring Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet to Britain, and that he does not even know “how much longer my father has” to live because of the terrible family relationships.
According to a royal insider, Charles is still angry and unhappy with his son, even if Harry may wish to mend his connection with his family.
According to a friend of the King, his involvement in the legal matter would have been ‘constitutionally wrong’.
They added: “What has frustrated and upset him on a more personal level is the Duke’s failure to respect this principle.”
“And for his supporters to suggest that somehow his father doesn’t care about his family, or should step in.”
Harry, 40, infuriated that ‘the other side’ in the case had ‘triumphed in keeping me insecure’ yesterday after England’s second-highest judge rejected his appeal court attempt to have his police bodyguards back in the UK.
The duke claimed the Royal Household used security “to imprison” members of the Royal Family, preventing them “from being able to choose a different life.” The duke left Britain in 2020 to live first in Canada and then in California.
He said: “It’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”
“I’m ‘devastated’ that I lost my battle over taxpayer-funded bodyguards,” Harry said in the rare interview, adding that he will have to pay £1.5 million in legal fees.
When he disclosed that “someone had told me beforehand” that there was “no way to win,” he smiled.
‘It’s impossible to bring my family back to the UK,’ the duke said in a barrage of stunning jabs at the Royal Family within hours of yesterday’s decision in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
“I love my country and always have done. Despite what some people in that country have done,” Harry added.
“So I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK. Of course I do. I think it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”
Buckingham Palace issued a direct response last night refuting Harry’s allegations of an establishment stitch-up.
Harry revealed his conflict with the King and Prince William, saying he had “forgiven them” after his racist interview with Oprah Winfrey and the release of his scathing memoir, Spare.
“There have been so many disagreements, differences between me and some of my family,” he said.
“Some will never forgive me for writing a book. But I would love reconciliation with my family.”
“I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff. But it would be nice to reconcile.”
But Harry paired his plea with an accusation that risks a constitutional debate: “What I know is interference came from the royal household.”
Harry stated that only he and the late Queen had comparable security risk “scores,” as determined by a Home Office quango, in an interview with the BBC’s Nada Tawfik in California.
He added: “I’ve been treated differently to everybody else that exists, I have been singled out.”
And in what was interpreted as a reference to Princess Diana, who died in a car crash, Harry said: “I don’t want history to repeat itself. Through the [court] process, I have discovered that some people want history to repeat itself.”
As the duke stated, this court battle’mattered the most’ out of all his court battles, yesterday’s decision is a cruel blow.
Now, taxpayers and his solicitors will be required to pay for his legal fees. The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) at the Home Office decided to reduce the security.
Harry said his ‘jaw dropped’ when he discovered the Royal Household – he named the King’s private secretary Sir Clive Alderton – sat on the Ravec committee. He said: “There is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands.”
“Ultimately this whole thing could be resolved through him.”
Shortly after Charles, 76, received a cancer diagnosis, Harry last saw the King in February of last year.
In a statement last night, Harry said he would be writing to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking her to “urgently examine the matter and review the Ravec process.”
Harry feels that since Megxit five years ago, he has been “singled out” and “badly treated” for “unjustified, inferior treatment.”
His lawyer claimed that the royal’s life was “at stake” because the Met Police had removed their armed escorts while he was in the UK.
When the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) decided that he should be given a different level of protection when in the nation, the California-based royal tried to have his High Court action against the Home Office dismissed.
But Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls said in his ruling this afternoon in London that Ravec’s decision “were taken as an understandable, and perhaps predictable, reaction to the claimant having stepped back from royal duties and having left the UK to live principally overseas.”
“These were powerful and moving arguments and that it was plain the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system”, he said.
“But I concluded, having studied the detail, I could not say that the Duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument to challenge RAVEC’s decision.”
Harry “makes the mistake of confusing superficial analogies,” according to Sir Geoffrey, when he contrasts himself with other VIPs who have “added nothing” to the legal issue.
‘My conclusion was that the Duke of Sussex’s appeal would be dismissed,’ he continued.
This implies that while he, Meghan, Archie, and Lilibet are in the UK, they will not immediately be rehired armed police bodyguards, which are funded by British taxpayers.
It makes it increasingly doubtful that the Sussexes will return to Britain.
Writing to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Harry stated in a statement last night that he will ‘urgently evaluate the problem and review the Ravec procedure’.
“The conditions of my security were not based on threat, risk and impact, they were made based on my role – one that my wife and I wanted to maintain but was ultimately refused,” he said.
He added: “This all comes from the same institutions that preyed upon my mother, that openly campaigned for the removal of our security, and continue to incite hatred towards me, my wife and even our children.”
When asked whether Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should ‘step in’, Harry told the BBC: “I think that based on the judgment that the court has put out today, it clearly states that Ravec are not constrained by law.”
“Again, I wish somebody had said that from the beginning.”
“Yes, I would ask the Prime Minister to step in,” he added.
