LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry was treated unfairly when his British security team was withdrawn, his lawyer told appeals court judges on Tuesday as he sought to regain his government-funded protection.
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Harry, who surprisingly was present in court, lost his police bodyguards in February 2020 after he resigned from his active role as a member of the Royal Family and moved to the United States.
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Why did Harry appeal to the British courts?
A judge from the High Court ruled last year that the decision of a government panel to provide “bespoke” security for the Duke of Sussex as needed was not illegal, irrational, or unjustified.
But lawyer Shaheed Fatima argued that a group that assessed the security needs of the Duke of Sussex did not follow its own process or conduct a risk management assessment.
Fatima expressed: “The appellant does not accept that ‘bespoke’ means better. In fact, in his opinion, it means that he has been singled out for different, unjustified, and inferior treatment.”
A government lawyer said that Harry’s argument in the lower court was deemed as incorrect and based on an “inappropriate formalistic interpretation” of the government’s security review.
Lawyer James Eadie commented: “The appeal must be characterized in the same way. It involves a continuous failure to see the forest instead of the trees, advancing propositions available only by reading small parts of the evidence, and now the trial, out of context, and ignoring the entirety of the picture.”
The hearing before three judges of the Court of Appeals is expected to conclude on Wednesday, with a written decision expected later. Although the hearing was broadcast live, much of the second day will be held behind closed doors to discuss sensitive security details.
Why did Harry decide to appear before the court?
Harry arrived at the courthouse with a small security team complemented by court officers. He waved to the cameras before disappearing through a private entrance.
The youngest son of King Carlos III, 40 years old, has challenged the convention of the Royal Family by taking the government and the tabloid press to court, where he has had mixed results.
However, Harry rarely attends court hearings, making only a few appearances in the past two years. This included the trial of one of his phone hacking cases against the British tabloids, which made him the first senior member of the royal family to take the witness stand in over 130 years.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle resigned from their official duties in the royal family in 2020 because they did not feel they were “being protected by the institution”, their lawyer said.
After doing so, a committee from the Ministry of the Interior ruled that “there was no basis for publicly funded security support for the duke and duchess within Great Britain.”.
Harry stated that he and his family are in danger when they visit their homeland due to the hostility directed towards him and Meghan on social media and through relentless media harassment.
Since he lost his government-sponsored protection, Harry has faced at least two serious security threats, his lawyer said in court documents: Al Qaeda had published a document stating that the assassination of King Charles’s youngest son would please Muslims, and he and his wife were involved in a dangerous paparazzi pursuit in New York.
Harry lost a legal case in which he sought authorization to privately pay for a police team when he was in the United Kingdom, but a judge denied that option after a government lawyer argued that officers should not be used as “private bodyguards for the wealthy”.