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Prince Harry on Tuesday lost his bid to legally challenge the British government’s decision not to allow him to pay for police protection while he is in the UK.
The High Court in London, which last year agreed that Harry should be allowed to challenge the original decision to end his protection, ruled on Tuesday that he could not seek a further judicial review of the rejection of the offer to pay privately for the trained man. officer.
The decision to remove publicly funded security was taken by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known by the acronym RAVEC, which approves security for royals and VIPs, such as the prime minister.
Last week, lawyers for Harry argued that RAVEC did not have the power to reject the funding offer, and that even if it had the power, it was wrong not to consider an exception or hear representations on his behalf.
However, lawyers for the police and the government say it is wrong to allow the fifth in line to the throne to pay for protection because it means the rich will be able to “buy” specially trained officers as personal bodyguards.
The royal protection disappears in 2020
They said that if a person pays such an official, who is obliged to destroy himself, the committee has considered that it is not in the public interest or the country.
It’s very different from paying police for football matches, marathons or even celebrity parties, he said.
Harry, the son of King Charles, was removed from the police security usually provided to royal figures in England after he and his American wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from their official duties in 2020 to move to the United States.
In his written judgment, Judge Martin Chamberlain dismissed Harry’s case, concluding that RAVEC had not erred in deciding that allowing payments for protective security was against the public interest.
The ruling comes less than a week after Harry’s spokeswoman said the prince, his wife and mother were involved in a “near-catastrophic” car chase with press photographers after an awards ceremony in New York.
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The prince has spoken out about fear for the safety of the family and regularly attacked the intrusion of the press, which was blamed for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who died when her limousine crashed while fleeing from the pursuit of the paparazzi. Paris in 1997.
Last year, Britain’s former head of counterterrorism police said there were credible threats against the couple by far-right extremists.
The case is one of a number Harry is currently dealing with in the High Court. His lawyer also attended a hearing where he and others sued the Mirror Group newspaper over allegations of phone hacking and other illegal activities.
Harry also sued the publisher of the Mail on Sunday newspaper for libel over an article that claimed he had only offered to pay for police protection after the start of a legal case against the British government.
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