Prince Harry has lost his bid for a second legal challenge against the Home Office over his security arrangements when in the UK.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, was seeking the go-ahead from the High Court to secure a judicial review over a decision that he should not be allowed to pay privately for his own protective security.
In a ruling on Tuesday, Mr Justice Chamberlain refused Harry permission to bring the second challenge, rejecting on a number of grounds.
It came after Metropolitan Police chiefs insisted to the court that their officers are not ‘guns for hire’ for the rich and famous, claiming that allowing Harry to pay for the protection of officers – potentially armed ones – would set an ‘unacceptable precedent’.
Harry’s legal team had earlier this month asked to bring a case over decisions taken by the Home Office and the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) – which falls under the remit of the department – in December 2021 and February 2022.
The estranged Duke had wanted to maintain, when in Britain, the Royal and Specialist Protection command (RASP) armed squad who protected him when he was a working royal, before the acrimonious fall-out with his family.
The Duke of Sussex (pictured outside the Royal Courts of Justice in March) was seeking the go-ahead from the High Court to secure a judicial review over a decision that he should not be allowed to pay privately for his protective security

Metropolitan Police chiefs previously insisted to the court that their officers are not ‘guns for hire’ for the rich and famous, claiming that allowing Harry to pay for the protection of officers – potentially armed ones – would set an ‘unacceptable precedent’ (Pictured: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with security in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 2018)
When told he no longer qualified for its protection after leaving for America with wife Meghan Markle, his offer to pay for it was declined.
It was that decision he decided to challenge in the courts, as he believed he should have been allowed to pay, in the same way football clubs do for officers to maintain order at matches.
But the Home Office, opposing Harry’s claim, said Ravec considered it was ‘not appropriate’ for wealthy people to ‘buy’ protective security, which might include armed officers, when it had decided that ‘the public interest does not warrant’ someone receiving such protection on a publicly funded basis.
Lawyers for the Met Police, an interested party in the case, said Ravec had been ‘reasonable’ in finding ‘it is wrong for a policing body to place officers in harm’s way upon payment of a fee by a private individual’.
The duke’s legal team argued Ravec’s view, that allowing payment for protective security would be contrary to the public interest and undermine public confidence in the Met Police, could not be reconciled with rules which expressly permit charging for certain police services.
However, in his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: ‘In my judgment, the short answer to this point is that Ravec did not say that it would be contrary to the public interest to allow wealthy individuals to pay for any police services.
‘It can be taken to have understood that s. 25(1) (of the Police Act 1996), to which it referred, expressly envisages payment for some such services.
‘Its reasoning was narrowly confined to the protective security services that fall within its remit.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, leaves the High Court in London on March 27, 2023

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex leave The Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on May 16, 2023
‘Those services are different in kind from the police services provided at, for example, sporting or entertainment events, because they involve the deployment of highly trained specialist officers, of whom there are a limited number, and who are required to put themselves in harm’s way to protect their principals.
‘Ravec’s reasoning was that there are policy reasons why those services should not be made available for payment, even though others are.
‘I can detect nothing that is arguably irrational in that reasoning.’
Mr Justice Chamberlain delivered his ruling in favour of the Home Office shortly after 10am on Tuesday morning.
The court was told at the earlier hearing that Harry’s latest legal challenge was related to a previous claim he brought against the Home Office after he was told he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security when visiting the UK.
A full hearing in that challenge, which also focuses on Ravec’s decision-making and for which Harry was given the go-ahead last summer, is yet to be held.
Harry’s lawyers told the court earlier this month that the Home Office delegated an ‘issue of principle’ to Ravec over ‘whether an individual whose position had been determined by Ravec not to justify protective security should be permitted to receive protective security but to reimburse the public purse for the cost of that security provision’.
Ravec later concluded that ‘individuals should not be permitted to privately fund protective security’, the judge was told.

When told he no longer qualified for its protection after leaving for America with wife Meghan Markle, his offer to pay for it was declined. (Pictured: Harry and Meghan in New York in September 2021)
A barrister for the Home Secretary previously told London’s Royal Courts of Justice that the Duke’s offer to pay for the expert Metropolitan police protection had rightly been dismissed, as it would set an ‘unacceptable’ precedent.
Robert Palmer KC told the court, including three barristers representing Prince Harry: ‘Officers are expected to place themselves in harm’s way to protect the principal [Royal under protection] and in the public interest.
‘It’s different from ordinary policing, and can only be provided when the public interest requires it.
‘It is inconsistent with those principles for a private individual to be able to pay for that security.’
Tuesday’s ruling comes amid an ongoing High Court trial involving the duke, in which he is bringing a contested claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
Harry is also waiting for rulings over whether similar cases against publishers Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) and News Group Newspapers (NGN) can go ahead.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk