Prince Harry claims his police protection was taken away to ‘trap’ him and Meghan Markle in the Royal Family.
The Duke of Sussex’s ‘worst fears have been confirmed’ by secret evidence heard in a new court case, The Telegraph reported.
The Duke said it was ‘difficult to swallow’ being told that the couple’s security was being revoked by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) back in 2020, with suggestions that the decision is at the centre of his rift with King Charles.
Harry spoke of his hurt at the treatment he and Meghan have received and implied that it would be difficult to heal the divide.
The Prince was shocked after his taxpayer-funded police protection was taken away once he and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, announced they were moving to the US and stepping back from royal public engagements.
Harry was in the UK to attend a two-day appeal hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in which he challenged the removal of his security when in the UK.
Speaking outside the court, he said: ‘We were trying to create this happy house.’
The Duke and Duchess reportedly believed that establishing a happy life of their own would help thaw relations with the Royal Family.
The couple saw the removal of their police protection as a way of trying to strongarm them into returning to the UK – since they felt that without security, visiting Britain would paint a target on their back.
Harry took the decision to take legal action against the Government to have his official security reinstated.
The Duke said that the case was even more significant than his legal battles against the tabloid press that he once called his ‘life’s work’.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Harry said what he had experienced during the legal process had crossed a line – and suggested he was upset with elements of the evidence that had been heard beyond closed doors this week in court.
The Prince said: ‘People would be shocked by what’s being held back.’ He added that his ‘worst fears have been confirmed by the whole legal disclosure in this case and that’s really sad’.
As legal proceedings came to a close, Harry said he was ‘exhausted’ and ‘overwhelmed’ by the legal case.
Even if Harry wins the appeal, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee may not be compelled to grant the Sussexes their wish to restore their security.
The Duke said he was ‘driven by exposing injustice’ and would continue to fight regardless of the outcome.
Harry has been accused of hypocrisy after he met dozens of wounded soldiers in Ukraine earlier this week despite claiming he and his family cannot be safe in Britain without taxpayer-funded police bodyguards.
However, an insider revealed that it is ‘simply incorrect’ to suggest the Ukraine trip contradicts Harry’s UK safety concerns or undermines his High Court case, claiming the team protecting him was ‘more robust’ than in Britain.
But a source close to Harry has claimed that the level of protection on his Ukrainian trip was better than what he receives in the UK.
“He can go to Ukraine – a country with an active warzone – because he has a robust security detail, one that he does not have in his home country”, they said.
It was reported earlier this week that Prince Harry did not see his father the King after flying into the UK for the legal hearing.
The Duke of Sussex landed from Los Angeles last Sunday but his father spent the weekend at Highgrove, his private Gloucestershire home, resting ahead of this week’s busy State Visit to Italy.,
Prince Harry’s taxpayer-funded security was cut after his highly unusual decision to quit royal duties and ‘spend most of the time abroad’, the High Court heard in the appeal hearing this week.
The Duke of Sussex claimed he was ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) stripped him of his top-level security in February 2020, following ‘Megxit’.
But Sir James Eadie KC, representing the Home Office, has said it had discretion to strip his guaranteed full time police security without consulting the Risk Management Board (RMB) quango.
“RMB risk analysis is the usual approach in usual cases,” he told the High Court earlier this week.
“But there is nothing about the appellant’s [Prince Harry’s] announcement in January 2020 that he was to step back from his role in the Royal family, and spend most of the time abroad, that was usual.”
Prince Harry’s lawyer Shaheed Fatima KC insisted that Ravec failed to follow its own guidelines and should have commissioned an assessment of the Duke’s security needs from the Risk Management Board (RMB).
Ms Fatima said: “The appellant [the Duke of Sussex] does not accept that bespoke means better – in fact, in his position, it means he has been singled out for different, inferior treatment.”
She added that the judge who previously ruled Ravec had acted correctly was mistaken.
But barrister Sir James, speaking for the Home Secretary, told the High Court that his extremely unusual withdrawal from Royal duties changed everything.
He said it was ‘hard to imagine’ someone more experienced and better placed than the chair of Ravec to make a bespoke decision about how the Duke’s security arrangements should change to accommodate “the unique and unusual circumstances of the appellant [Prince Harry]”.
And Sir James denied the Duke was treated unfairly and said: ‘He was not being singled out – on the contrary, the process being adopted had positive advantages for him.’
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