The Duke of Sussex has revived his security battle with the Home Office by writing to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, about his case.
A formal request has been lodged by the prince with the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) which is overseen by the Home Office, asking for a risk-assessment process to be conducted.
Sources close to the process confirm that Harry has written to Mahmood, having previously been in correspondence with her predecessor, Yvette Cooper.
A source close to the duke said that while he recognises his case will not be top of Mahmood’s priority list, he has asked for Ravec to “abide by its own rules” — that a risk management board (RMB) should be conducted for each member of the royal family and other qualifying VIPs every year.
“I can confirm that the duke has written to the new Home Secretary asking for a risk management board to be conducted,” the source said.
“While he realises this will not be top of the incoming secretary’s in-tray it is something which should have happened a long time ago. We have had the can kicked down the road for quite a while now but all he’s asking is for Ravec to abide by its own rules which state that an RMB should be conducted each year. The last one for the duke was in 2019.”
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Home Office sources have confirmed that requests for an assessment have been made by the duke but said it was government policy not to comment on individual cases in order to protect their security.
A government spokesperson said: “The UK government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.”
Ravec makes decisions on the protective security of the royal family and key public figures in the UK. Its membership includes the Home Office, Metropolitan Police and the royal household, who work together to advise the independent chair to make decisions on who should be given protection and at what level.
This year, Harry, 41, lost his final appeal in the High Court to have his police protection reinstated in the UK.
The duke’s police security is based on a “case-by-case” basis and Harry gives a month’s notice before each visit. He is arguing that this is not sufficient as each case is not being assessed according to the risk against him.
Harry has complained that he was denied a formal assessment from an RMB when his security was downgraded in 2020 after he stepped down from his official royal role.
When he travelled to the UK in September, individual police forces were alerted in advance. In London, officers from the Metropolitan Police carried out a security sweep of the Royal Lancaster Hotel hosting the WellChild awards, where he gave a speech.
It is understood that the British Transport Police were alerted when he travelled to Nottingham to visit a community recording studio to support a BBC Children in Need project.
Meghan made a surprise appearance at the Balenciaga fashion show in Paris last week
ARNOLD JEROCKI/GETTY IMAGES
The duke’s attempts to have his security reinstated in the UK have so far been unsuccessful. The High Court judge Sir Peter Lane ruled last year that a decision taken by Ravec in early 2020 to remove security from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after their departure from their official roles was lawful.
Harry challenged the court ruling. At his appeal, Shaheed Fatima KC, acting for the duke, said: “When Ravec made its February 2020 decision about the appellant’s protective security, it did not apply its own terms of reference to that decision-making process.”
Fatima told the court that Ravec did not get an assessment from an “expert specialist body called the risk management board, or the RMB” and came up with a “different and so-called ‘bespoke process’”.
She told the Court of Appeal that the failure to do a risk management board assessment for Harry meant that Ravec “did not have the expert analysis that it needed” to determine whether he should be treated like people in the “other VIP” category.
The Home Office, which has the legal responsibility for the committee’s decisions, successfully opposed the duke’s appeal.
Speaking after his defeat in the High Court in May, Harry told the BBC that the case surrounding his security was like “a good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up”.
He called on Cooper, then home secretary, to review the case “very, very carefully” and added: “I would ask the prime minister to step in.”
Harry left royal duties nearly six years ago. Since then, he has returned to the UK on only a few occasions, stating that the country feels unsafe for his children: Archie, six, and Lilibet, four.
In October his wife Meghan travelled to France for Paris Fashion Week. The duchess, 44, made a surprise appearance at the Balenciaga show where she was greeted by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s global editorial director and Baz Lurhmann, the film director.
Last year the couple visited Colombia and Nigeria to promote their charity work and Harry was seen at events in New York this week.
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