Harry’s court battle for police escort

LAWYERS for Prince Harry will today challenge a Home Office decision that he is no longer entitled to armed police guards when he visits Britain.

It was not known if the Duke of Sussex will fly in from his home in California to attend the three- day hearing at the High Court, when his legal team are expected to argue that the decision was unfair.

His taxpayer-funded protection was removed after he stepped back as a senior royal and moved to the US with wife Meghan. This week’s case will consider the February 2020 decision by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as Ravec, to withdraw his automatic right to such protection.

He says he does not feel safe to bring his family to Britain without police protection, and that private bodyguards cannot match the powers and intelligence-gathering capacity of the police.

His lawyers have previously questioned whether members of the Royal Household were involved in the decision to withdraw his automatic police protection.

It emerged that Sir Edward Young, the late Queen’s assistant private secretary, and the Earl of Rosslyn, the Lord Steward of Prince Charles’s household, were on the Ravec committee at the time.

Harry, 39, has previously lost a High Court case in which he argued he should be allowed to pay for police protection for himself and his family when they are in the UK.