Security setback for Harry in court

Prince Harry has lost a major legal bid that won’t allow him to ‘buy’ the UK’s Metropolitan Police to act as his security.

Prince Harry has failed in a legal bid to overturn a decision denying him paid access to the Metropolitan Police.

Prince Harry has lost an important legal challenge concerning his right to “buy” the services of the Metropolitan Police to act as his security when in Britain.

The High Court has rejected his application to allow a judicial review of a decision that he not be allowed to pay privately for the highly trained and heavily armed Royal and Specialist Protection command as his own security.

The court ruling comes a week after Harry and wife Meghan released a statement claiming they had been involved in a near-­catastrophic two-hour car chase following an awards ceremony in New York.

They had been reported to have been shaken by the incident and their friends magnified the situation by saying it was “near-fatal”.

The NYPD said while the situation was “challenging”, there were “no reported collisions, summonses, injuries or arrests”.

The British Home Office and the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) had determined in December 2021 and February 2022 that the Sussexes were no longer working royals and would not be provided tax-payer funded police security detail. Harry then offered to pay for the security himself, which was rejected.

The Metropolitan Police lawyers had told the High Court that Ravec had been reasonable in finding “it is wrong for a policing body to place officers in harm’s way upon payment of a fee by a private individual”.

The High Court was told it would set a dangerous precedent.

While Harry has lost a bid to have a judicial review, he still has another court challenge to look at a decision by the Home Office not to provide the same degree of personal protective security when he is visiting Britain.

This hearing, for which a date is to be set, was allowed after Harry had claimed he had been denied a clear and full ­explanation of ­the decision-­making by, and operations of, the RaSP.