Agencies
London
The Duke of Sussex was “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment” in a decision to downgrade the level of security he receives in the UK, the Court of Appeal has heard.
Prince Harry is making his latest legal challenge after the High Court upheld the decision that he should not be provided with the same level of police protection given to working members of the Royal Family.
His barrister Shaheed Fatima KC told the court Prince Harry had been subject to a “different and so-called bespoke process” in that original decision.
But Sir James Eadie KC, representing the Home Office, said the appeal case puts forward arguments based on “small parts of the evidence”.
Prince Harry sat on Tuesday with a notepad and pen in the back row of the court, next to his solicitor and behind his barristers. He did not give evidence.
The prince’s case is challenging the way the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, known as Ravec, took the decision on his security arrangements after he stepped down from being a working royal in 2020.
In written submissions to the court today, his barrister said the duke and his wife “felt forced to step back from the role of full time official working members of the Royal Family as they considered they were not being protected by the institution”.
The duke’s security in the UK is currently decided on a case-by-case basis, the same way as the country’s other high-profile visitors.
Prince Harry has previously said that the safety of his family, with whom he moved to California in 2020, was at the heart of the case.
