Prince Harry's second legal case against Home Office over security begins

Prince Harry's lawyers claimed that the decision to forbid the Duke of Sussex from paying for police protection while he is staying in the United Kingdom is unlawful, as he started a second legal case against the Home Office over his security arrangements.

Prince Harry's lawyers, at a high court hearing in London, argued that he must be given the go-ahead to bring a case over the executive committee's decision for the protection of public figures and royalty (which has been termed in court papers as Ravec), which states that people should not be allowed to privately pay for their protective security.

Lawyers for the Home Office stated that it was inappropriate for “wealthy people” to be able to “buy” specialist armed police officials for security.

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The duke's lawyers stated that Ravec's decision was inconsistent with the 1996 Police Act which permits the “chief officer of the police” to provide special police services “subject to payment”.

Renewed case of Prince Harry is related to an earlier attempt to challenge the court's decision that he would no longer be provided the same degree of personal protective security when he will visit the United Kingdom after he stepped back as a working royal and shifted to the United States.

Arguing on behalf of Harry, Shaheed Fatima KC said the case raised an “important issue of principle”.

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She added the argument relied on by Ravec, “that allowing payment for protective security is contrary to the public interest and will undermine public confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service”, did not match with the fact that parliament had allowed for payment of such services.

She added Ravec had failed to provide any principled or rational basis for marking a distinction between the provision of providing protective security to those people within the Ravec cohort, who, according to the decision of the funding, “are not permitted to privately fund protective security, and other private individuals, who could privately fund protective security, by making a request to the chief officer of police”.

“Ravec had exceeded its authority, its power, because it doesn’t have the power to make this decision in the first place,” she added.

Decision taken in public interest, lawyer argues

Matthew Butt KC, who represents the Metropolitan police, speaking at the court said that because of such specialist policing the officers get exposed to “unique risks” and that Ravec took the decision in the public interest.

“It cannot be right that officers are expected to expose themselves to that level of risk not in the public interest but because the policing body has been financially compensated. That can only be justified with public interest,” he added.

In written submissions, the Met police stated it was “wrong for a policing body to place officers in harm’s way upon payment of a fee by a private individual”.