Prince Harry has lost a legal bid aimed at allowing him to pay the UK for additional police protection while in the country.
Renegade royal Prince Harry has lost a legal fight aimed at allowing him to pay the UK state for additional police protection while in the country.
Having lost the level of protection he previously had upon abandoning his position as a working British royal to live in the United States, the Prince had demanded he be able to pay the UK government in exchange for additional police protection whenever he visits Britain.
Such a demand however was rejected by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which claimed that allowing the British royal to do so would set the precedent that wealthy people could simply “buy” protection from UK police not available to the masses.
According to a report by the state-owned BBC, an attempt by Harry to challenge this decision in a UK court has now been rejected, with a British judge finding that Ravec was well within its rights to reject attempts by the Prince to buy protection.
Justifying the rejection, the judge stated that a claim by Harry’s legal team that UK law gave private individuals the right to pay for police protection was ultimately unfounded, with the official saying that the law in question was in relation to the policing of public events, not specialist protection for individual persons.
“[Ravec’s] reasoning was narrowly confined to the protective security services that fall within its remit,” Mr Justice Chamberlain said.
“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,” he continued.
“Ravec’s reasoning was that there are policy reasons why those services should not be made available for payment, even though others are,” he added. “I can detect nothing that is arguably irrational in that reasoning.”
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