How Prince Harry tried to keep his legal fight over bodyguards a secret

Prince Harry tried to keep details of his legal battle to reinstate his police protection secret from the public, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

High Court documents show he sought a far-reaching confidentiality order on documents and witness statements surrounding his case against the Government.

But the Home Office argued for transparency, saying ‘there must be a sufficiently good reason, in the wider public interest, to justify the departure from open justice that such an order involves’.

Both sides then agreed that some papers would be made public with the Home Office agreeing to carry out a ‘confidentiality exercise’ to determine what would be kept secret, even though it caused ‘an unprecedented expenditure of time and resources’.

When The Mail on Sunday last month revealed that Harry was suing the Government, his spin-doctors swung into action, briefing journalists that Harry was being denied the right to pay for bodyguards.

It led to inaccurate reports across the media, such as the BBC headline: ‘Prince Harry in legal fight to pay for UK police protection.’

As documents lodged at the High Court last week show, no such offer to pay was made in the Prince’s initial ‘pre-action’ letters to the Home Office, suggesting he expected British taxpayers to cover it.

The Sussexes pictured with their children. High Court documents show he sought a far-reaching confidentiality order on documents and witness statements surrounding his case against the Government

The revelations are a crushing rebuttal to Harry’s initial public statement that implied he had always been willing to foot the bill.

Nor did he offer to pay when he visited the UK last June to unveil a statue to his mother, Princess Diana.

Home Office lawyers state that it was only in later correspondence that the offer was made.

That led to fury last night that aides acting for Harry sought to confuse the mainstream media’s response to the story, ironic given the Prince now has a role with a Silicon Valley firm tackling ‘misinformation’ online.

As royal author David McClure, tweeted: ‘Once more confusion about the accuracy of messages coming out of the Sussex camp. First Harry offers to pay, then when he visits the UK, he does not.’

The Duke launched his claim in September, more than 18 months after the Government’s RAVEC (Royal and VIP Executive Committee) decided he would be stripped of his full state-funded security.

Harry, pictured with Meghan, argues that ‘while his role within the institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal Family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family’

But court papers reveal that Harry still maintains ‘exceptional status’, which means he could be afforded protection depending on the nature of his visits, assessed on a ‘case-by-case basis’.

Harry argues that ‘while his role within the institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal Family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.’

Yet his initial bid to get the decision overturned did not mention he would pay anything. Court papers say: ‘The offer [to pay] is now advanced in the Claimant’s witness statement…but notably was not advanced to RAVEC in June 2021 or in any of the pre-action correspondence which followed.’

It adds that Harry’s recent offer to pay is nevertheless ‘irrelevant’ because ‘personal protective security by the police is not available on a privately financed basis, and RAVEC does not make decisions…on the basis that any financial contribution could be sought or obtained to pay for it’.

When The Mail on Sunday first broke the story, lawyers and PR advisers acting for the Sussexes sought to put their own gloss on it.

The revelations are a crushing rebuttal to Harry’s initial public statement that implied he had always been willing to foot the bill

Just six minutes after The Mail on Sunday’s world exclusive, the Press Association, apparently having been given an advanced briefing by Harry’s camp, reported that the Duke had offered ‘to pay personally for UK police protection’ and quoted his lawyer saying: ‘He remains willing to cover the cost of security.’

Omid Scobie, a journalist known to be supportive of the Sussexes, also appeared to have been briefed by Harry’s team.

Five hours after this newspaper told the Prince’s aides we were planning a story, Scobie told his 76,000 Twitter followers: ‘Prince Harry has applied for a judicial review of a Home Office decision not to allow him to personally pay for police protection for himself and his family when they are in the UK, a legal representative for the Sussexes confirms.’

Harry’s team only responded to this newspaper after this inaccurate version of events had been tweeted.

Further questions were raised last night about the legal fight.

Former Minister Norman Baker said: ‘The police are not a commodity to buy like a pack of biscuits.

If Harry has concerns about a specific threat, he should share those with the police. 

Otherwise, it is open to him to engage security staff on any visits. Personally, I would have thought he was at more risk in gun-mad America than over here.’

Home Office QC Robert Palmer has said that if Harry loses, the Government will ‘seek the costs incurred in full, including those of the confidentiality exercise’.

Duke expected to miss Philip memorial

Prince Harry is not expected to attend the memorial service for the Duke of Edinburgh next month as he continues his legal battle over security.

On Friday, a court heard that Harry did not ‘feel safe’ in Britain without the protection of Scotland Yard officers, who he believes offer superior protection to privately hired bodyguards.

Members of the Royal Family now believe that his latest comments rule out a return for the March 29 service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.

Harry returned without his wife Meghan and children Lilibet, aged eight months, and Archie, two, in April to attend his grandfather’s funeral, which was restricted to close family and friends at Windsor due to Covid restrictions.

But a source close to the Royal Family said: ‘They don’t think it’s likely he’ll come back because it would undermine his position that it’s too much of a threat.’

It is believed to be even more unlikely that Meghan and their children would return.

Harry’s grandmother still hasn’t met the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ daughter, who was born last June in California and named Lilibet after the Queen’s childhood nickname.

A no-show from Harry at such an important event, particularly one which will honour his beloved grandfather, will no doubt add further tension to the strained relationship with his family.

When the Queen recently announced that it was her ‘sincere wish’ that Camilla would become Queen when her husband Charles is King, Harry made no publicly supportive comment to his step-mother in response to the news.

And the Royal family is braced for further Harry bombshells when he publishes his memoirs, which are said to have been pushed back to the end of this year.

Yet Harry is still in touch with some members of the family.

Last weekend he was seen watching the Super Bowl in America with his cousin Eugenie, daughter of Prince Andrew, who had flown out to LA for a visit that combined a work event with a trip to see Harry.