Prince Harry 'devastated' after losing legal fight with UK government over police protection

By Michael Holden and Sam Tobin

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Harry said he was "devastated" after he lost his legal challenge on Friday to Britain changing his security arrangements after he stepped down from royal duties, telling the BBC he could not safely bring his family to Britain.

Harry, King Charles' younger son who has moved to the United States with his wife Meghan, had sought to overturn a decision by the Home Office, the ministry responsible for policing.

A specialist body decided in February 2020 that Harry would not automatically receive personal police protection while in Britain, which London's High Court last year ruled was lawful.

On Friday, that decision was upheld by three Court of Appeal judges who said that, while Harry understandably felt aggrieved, that did not amount to an error of law.

"Obviously, pretty gutted about the decision," Harry, who now lives in California with Meghan and their two children, told the BBC.

"We thought it was going to go our way, but it certainly has proven that there was no way to win this through the courts."

He added: "My status hasn't changed - it can't change. I am who I am, I am part of what I am part of, I can't escape that."

Judge Geoffrey Vos said in the court's ruling that Harry's lawyer had made "powerful and moving arguments" about the impact of the security change.

"It was plain that the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system, but ... I could not say that the Duke's sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for the challenge to RAVEC's decision," he told the court.

Harry, 40, attended two days of hearings in April, when his lawyer told the court that he had been singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment.

'LIFE AT STAKE'

His lawyer Shaheed Fatima said Harry's "life was stake", citing that al Qaeda had recently called for him to be murdered, and he and Meghan had been involved in "a dangerous car pursuit with paparazzi in New York City" in 2023.

However, the government's legal team said the bespoke arrangement for the prince had positive advantages from a security assessment point of view.

Harry, along with other senior royals, had received full publicly-funded security protection provided by the state before his high-profile exit from official royal life in March 2020.

The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as RAVEC, then decided Harry would no longer receive the same level of protection, a decision Vos said was "an understandable and perhaps predictable reaction" to him stepping down from royal duties and moving abroad.

Harry, who has been involved in a number of court cases with tabloid papers, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper after the April hearings that this case "mattered the most" and evidence heard in secret had confirmed his "worst fears".

The prince has often spoken out about his concerns, referring back to the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed when her chauffeur-driven car crashed as it sped away from chasing paparazzi in Paris in 1997.

Next week, Harry's legal team will be back at the High Court as part of the lawsuit he has brought with singer Elton John and other against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and MailOnline, over alleged widespread unlawful activities.

In January, he was paid substantial damages by Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group after it settled a claim he had brought against its titles and admitted it had intruded into his private life.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Sam Tobin, additional reporting by Muvija M and David Milliken; Editing by Catarina Demony, Hugh Lawson and Alex Richardson)