Prince Harry 'gutted' to lose U.K. security decision, confirms no communication with King Charles
CBC
Prince Harry told the BBC it was "impossible for me to take my family back to the U.K. safely" after he lost his legal challenge to the British government on Friday changing his security arrangements after he stepped down from royal duties.
King Charles's younger son, the Duke of Sussex unsuccessfully sought to overturn a decision by the Home Office — the ministry responsible for policing — which decided in 2020 he would not automatically receive the highest level of personal police protection in Britain.
The prince told the BBC in an interview conducted in the U.S. that he was "pretty gutted about the decision."
"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," said Harry.
The decision was originally made under a Conservative government. Harry said there was nothing legally preventing the Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer from stepping in to review the decision.
"I would ask the prime minister to step in. I would ask Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to look at this very, very carefully," he told the BBC.
Harry said he still hoped for a reconciliation with members of his family, but he said his father "won't speak to me because of this security stuff," and that he was unaware of the status of the King's recovery from a cancer diagnosis.
Harry, 40, told the BBC that whether he is fulfilling royal duties or not, he is still a member of a high-profile family and his security requirements are not that of a typical private citizen. He pointed out that prime ministers and other high-profile officials, rightly, in his view, receive the highest level of security protection long after their years of public service.
"My status hasn't changed — it can't change," he said. "I am who I am, I am part of what I am part of, I can't escape that."
Harry and his American wife Meghan Markle married at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Within two years the couple quit royal duties, and after a temporary stay in British Columbia, they moved to California, citing what they saw as the media's racist treatment of Meghan and a lack of support from the palace.
The couple now have two children.
The couple detailed the evolution of the breach in a high-profile interview with Oprah Winfrey and a six-part Netflix documentary. Harry then wrote a memoir, Spare, in which he alleged his older brother William assaulted him in a 2019 incident and called Meghan "difficult," "rude" and "abrasive."
Last year, the High Court in London ruled the decision was lawful and that decision was upheld by three senior Court of Appeal judges.
Judge Geoffrey Vos said Harry's lawyer had made "powerful and moving arguments" about the impact of the decision about his security.
