Court to Harry: No Dice on Enhanced Security Detail

More than five years ago, when he was living in Canada with wife Meghan Markle, Prince Harry was stripped of the all-encompassing, UK-funded security detail he received while still a working royal. Now, his attempts to push back against that decision have been quashed yet again, as the Duke of Sussex saw his challenge to London's Court of Appeal rejected. The three judges in that case rebuffed Harry's claim that he'd been "singled out" for "inferior treatment," putting his safety and life "at stake," per the Guardian.

"Having studied the detailed documents, I could not say the duke's sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for a challenge to Ravec's decision," Justice Geoffrey Vos noted. The "Ravec" that he refers to is the government panel otherwise known as the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures that ruled initially in February 2020 that Harry and Meghan, now living in California with their two young children, would no longer be entitled to the same level of protection in the UK that they used to receive when they still assumed royal duties.

Instead, the Sussexes would receive a "bespoke" level of protection when they visited Britain, each visit of which would require at least 30 days' notice so that the UK government could assess the risk of that visit. Last year, a high court judge backed up Ravec's decision, despite the fact that the 40-year-old prince's name has popped up as an assassination target by al-Qaeda and that he and his wife are often crowded by the paparazzi, according to his legal team.

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On past visits back to the UK, such as for his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and his father King Charles III's coronation, Harry forked over his own money to arrange for his security there, after putting in requests to Ravec that were apparently denied. It's not clear if Harry will appeal to the UK's Supreme Court, per the AP, which notes that the prince "has bucked royal family convention by taking the government and tabloid press to court." The New York Times notes that Harry is also currently embroiled in a case against the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid. (More Prince Harry stories.)