Shorouk Express
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Prince Harry has said his father, King Charles, no longer talks to him because of his legal battle over changes to his security arrangements after he quit royal duties.
And the Duke of Sussex called on Sir Keir Starmer to step in and review a Court of Appeal ruling that went against him over the levels of security he is entitled to in the UK.
“I would ask the prime minister to step in. I would ask Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to look at this very, very carefully,” Harry said after losing his challenge.
The decision was “a good old-fashioned stitch-up”, the prince claimed, adding that the specialist body that reviewed the security arrangements should be reviewed.
The Duke of Sussex said he was devastated about losing his legal challenge against the Home Office and claimed that “for the time being” it was impossible for him to bring his family to the UK safely.
Of his estranged relationship with the monarch, he said: “He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”, adding that he did not know how long the King had left to live.
“There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,” he said in an emotional interview with the BBC.
He said some members of his family would never forgive him for the book he wrote, Spare, in which he revealed a host of royal secrets.
However, the duke said he had now “forgiven” them.
“I would love a reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight any more,” Harry said. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
The duke has seen his father, 76, who is being treated for cancer, only once, briefly, since his diagnosis early last year.
Better security was key to repairing his relationship with his family, Harry said.
The 40-year-old had appealed against the dismissal of his High Court claim against the Home Office over the decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) in 2020 that he should receive a different degree of protection when in the UK.
Last year, the High Court ruled the decision was lawful.
But Harry’s barristers told a two-day hearing in April that he was singled out for “inferior treatment” and that Ravec did not follow its own terms of reference when deciding his security.
Now the decision has been upheld by three Court of Appeal judges who said that, while the prince understandably felt aggrieved, that did not amount to an error of law.
The duke said he was “pretty gutted” about the appeal court’s decision, adding: “We thought it was going to go our way.”
His lawyer, Shaheed Fatima, said Harry’s life was stake, citing that al-Qaeda had recently called for him to be killed, and he and his wife Meghan had been involved in a dangerous car chase with paparazzi in New York City in 2023.
However, the government’s legal team said the bespoke arrangement for the prince had 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.
He slated the appeal court’s ruling, saying it meant royals could not live outside the control of the royal family.
And he said he loved his country and would love to show his young children his homeland, but now he returns only for funerals and court cases.
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 Mail Online, over alleged widespread unlawful activities.
