Prince Harry has launched a legal action to be able to benefit from police protection, which he would pay personally, when he travels with his family to the United Kingdom, a legal representative has said.
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Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife Meghan lost their police protection in the UK after deciding to step down from the royal family in 2020. The couple now live in California with their children Archie and Lilibet.
The prince wants to take his children to his native country but he and his family “cannot return home” because it is too dangerous, said a legal representative for Harry, citing in particular “extremist and neo-Nazi” threats.
In the summer of 2021 “his safety had been compromised due to the lack of police protection when he left a charity event,” he continued. On June 30, after an encounter with sick children, his car was chased by paparazzi in London.
This lawsuit launched in September and aimed at reconsidering a decision of the Ministry of the Interior risks embarrassing the royal family, already facing the threat of trial in the United States for sexual assaults targeting Prince Andrew.
To preserve the monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II deprived her son Andrew of any official role and military titles this week, but voices are being raised that he now pay for his own safety.
Prince Harry’s representative argues that “the UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country where he wants his wife and children to be safe,” in a statement to the PA news agency.
Seven-month-old Lilibet (the nickname given to Queen Elizabeth when she was a child) has yet to meet her great-grandmother Elizabeth II or her grandfather Prince Charles.
Prince Harry’s last visit to the UK was last summer for the July 1 unveiling of a statue of his mother Diana, who died in Paris in 1997 in a car crash after being chased by paparazzi.
“Prince Harry inherited a lifelong security risk at birth. He remains sixth in line to the throne, has served two combat missions in Afghanistan and, in recent years, his family has been subjected to extremist and neo-Nazi threats, ”says his legal representative.
A government spokesman said the system surrounding the protection of personalities was “rigorous and proportionate” and declined to give details of these arrangements or the legal proceedings launched.
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