Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III, lost his bid to reinstate his security on visits to the U.K., a judge ruled Friday.
Harry’s security situation will now remain as is following the ruling. He will be provided state-funded police protection on a case-by-case basis when he visits the U.K.
The judge’s ruling marks the end of a multiyear legal challenge from Harry to a 2020 decision by the U.K. government that denied his family automatic taxpayer-funded police protection while in Britain, after he and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stepped away from their roles as senior working royals.
At the time, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as RAVEC, made a decision that security for the Sussexes would be granted on a case-by-case basis. The committee also rejected Harry’s proposal to personally pay for police protection for his family while visiting the U.K.
Britain’s Prince Harry departs the High Court in London, April 9, 2025.
Tolga Akmen/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Last year, a London judge ruled the U.K. government had the right to strip Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, of an automatic security detail during visits to Britain.
Reading a summary of the judgment dismissing Harry’s appeal, the judge said Friday that arguments put forward by his lawyer were “powerful and moving,” and that it was, “plain that the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system.”
“I concluded, having studied the detail of the extensive documentation, I could not say that the duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for the challenge to RAVEC’s decision,” he continued. “The duke was in effect stepping in and out of the cohort of protection provided by RAVEC. Outside the U.K., he was outside the cohort, but when in the U.K., his security would be considered as appropriate.”
He added, “It was impossible to say that this reasoning was illogical or inappropriate, indeed it seemed sensible.”
Harry has not yet commented on the ruling.
In their appeal of the ruling, Harry’s lawyers argued in April court hearings that the 40-year-old faces security risks, including from al-Qaeda, who they say have called for Harry’s assassination.
Harry, the fifth in line to the British throne, has said previously that his security risk is so high in the U.K. he feels reluctant to bring his family to his home country.
In closing remarks in court last month, Harry’s lawyer, Shaheed Fatima KC, told the judge that Harry’s “life is at stake.”
“There is a person sitting behind me whose safety, whose security, and whose life is at stake,” Fatima said. “There is a person sitting behind me who is being told he is getting a special bespoke process when he knows and has experienced a process that is manifestly inferior in every respect.”
Harry traveled from California to the U.K. to attend last month’s hearings, arriving to court on his own, without his wife Meghan or any royal family members.
After stepping away from their senior royal roles, Harry and Meghan moved to California, where they now live with their two children, Archie and Lilibet.
The family of four is not known to have traveled to the U.K. together since 2022, when they attended Platinum Jubilee celebrations for Harry’s grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately funded security team.
