The situation surrounding police protection of Prince Harry during his visits to the UK entered a new phase after the Home Office confirmed a new review of his risk level would be carried out … a move that comes months after British courts upheld the withdrawal of his automatic protection when he ceased to be a working member of the royal family in 2020.
Sources cited by the local press indicated that the review will focus on whether the Duke should be given full protection every time he sets foot on British soil, even if he no longer carries out institutional functions, an approach which contrasts with the test applied so far, according to which safety was assessed in a timely manner on every trip.
Legal fight
The dispute between the prince and the British state dates back to when Harry and his wife Meghan Markle They moved to the United States and gave up their official duties, leading the Committee for the Protection of Royalties and Public Figures to lower their security level and determine that their needs would be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The change was the subject of a legal challenge brought by Harry, which he lost at the Court of Appeal this year.
This opens the door to normalizing your presence in the country and facilitating private meetings.
In that decision, the judges said it was not proven that the administrative process had operated illegally and that the fact that the prince felt unfairly treated was not a sufficient reason to revoke the decision. The court also recalled that the committee had taken into account his character as a sporadic visitor and the abandonment of his official responsibilities to determine his protection category.
After hearing the judgment, Harry said he felt devastated and did not see it possible to return to the country with his partner and children, as he considered that he could not guarantee their safety in the current conditions.
The announcement of the order for a new review introduces an important turning point, since in recent years, the Interior had always declared that the decisions taken concerning the Duke of Sussex were considered final. According to information published by several British media, the reassessment includes updating the risk analysis, consulting police reports and reviewing the parameters applied in 2020, when its protection category was lowered. The process is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, although the government has not specified dates or clarified whether the reassessment could lead to a full restoration of publicly funded armed protection.
This movement takes place in a context where the family dimension of the story continues to attract attention. He King Charles III He has only seen Harry and Meghan’s children on one publicly confirmed occasion, and the eventual reactivation of a stable security protocol would, in theory, allow visits from Harry’s family to take place without the restrictions he himself has called insurmountable. For their loved ones, this possibility opens a moderate, although still uncertain, door to normalize their presence in the country and facilitate private meetings which until now seemed impossible.
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