Prince Harry Is in Court to Fight for More Police Protection in the U.K.

It has now been five years since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle first announced that they were stepping away from their duties as members of the Royal Family. In that time, they have spent plenty of time discussing what went down inside the family that led to that decision and also made a move to Los Angeles.

Although Harry no longer resides in the U.K., though, he still visits the country regularly to see his family and participate in a variety of charitable endeavors. Now, Harry is in court because of those visits and because he doesn't think he's being protected well enough inside the country. Here's what we know.

Prince Harry is in court because the British government made the decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded police protection, and he believes that was the wrong decision. The government decided that Harry would no longer be given the same degree of police protection as formal members of the Royal Family when he is in the country.

According to reporting in CNN, Harry arrived in court on April 8 and sat several rows behind his barrister, listening to the arguments he presented and occasionally sipping from a glass of water.

The decision to downgrade Harry's security was made by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, and Harry's barrister, Shaheed Fatima KC, suggested that the committee had “singled out" Harry "for different, unjustified, and inferior treatment."

She further argued that RAVEC did not follow its own policies and procedures when downgrading Harry's security. Shaheed added in a written argument that Harry “and his wife felt forced to step back from the role of full time official working members of the royal family as they considered they were not being protected by the institution, but they wished to continue their duties in support of the late Queen as privately funded members of the royal family."

James Eadie KC, barrister for the Home Office, emphasized that Harry would still be receiving security, just not at the same level as before.

"Rather that it was simply that that security would not be provided on the same basis as before because of his change of status and because he was now going to live abroad for the majority of his time," he explained.

“We are in territory in which there are no right or wrong answers. There are matters of judgment against necessarily broad and soft-edged criteria … in which the security expertise of those involved is likely be critical," he continued.

Harry has been outspoken since leaving the Royal Family about his concerns for his own family, in part because of the way his mother was hounded by reporters until her death.

“I cannot put my wife in danger like that and, given my experiences in life, I am reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too,” he said in a statement in 2023. It seems, then, that Harry just wants to make sure he and his family avoid the fate that befell his mother.