Prince Harry’s latest doomed battle with the Home Office over police bodyguards cost British taxpayers £100,000, new figures revealed today.
The Duke of Sussex lost his case at the Court of Appeal last month, saying in a BBC interview straight afterwards that ‘I wish someone had told me beforehand’ there was ‘no way to win’.
Today the Mail can reveal the Home Office has put its legal costs in the case at £656,324, which includes £554,000 for the original case a year ago which the High Court ruled Harry had ‘comprehensively lost’.
Since then, during which time Harry appealed the decision, an additional £102,000 has been incurred by government lawyers.
It is likely that, as the losing party, Harry will be ordered to reimburse taxpayers all or most of the costs, putting him on the hook for as much as £1.5million, when his own legal costs are added. Last year, after he lost the original case, a judge said Harry should repay 90 per cent of the public’s costs.
Last month’s damning appeal ruling was a bitter blow to the duke who said that, of all his various court battles, this one ‘mattered the most’.
He had flown in from California to attend a two-day hearing in April and sat in court as his barrister argued that removing his automatic right to Met Police armed bodyguards when he was in the UK had put his life ‘at stake’.
His KC said the threats against him had not diminished just because he had stopped being a frontline royal, and his military service had placed him at particular risk.
The Duke of Sussex at the Royal Courts of Justice on April 8 during his appeal against a High Court ruling preventing him getting automatic taxpayer-funded police protection in the UK, which was taken away following Megxit
The bill to British taxpayers, according to an FOI answer from the Home Office
On May 2, England’s second most senior judge, Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos, sitting with two other judges, ruled that while ‘these were powerful and moving arguments, and it was plain the Duke of Sussex felt badly treated by the system…I could not say that the duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument’. Sir Geoffrey ruled the original security decision had been a ‘predictable’ and even ‘sensible’ reaction to Megxit – when Harry stepped back from being a senior royal and quit Britain.
Hours after the Appeal Court’s ruling, Harry went nuclear in a BBC interview filmed in California, launching a blistering attack on the King who ‘won’t speak to me’ and claiming there had been ‘an Establishment stitch-up’.
He accused the royal household of ‘interfering’ in his long-running battle in His Majesty’s courts to reinstate his police bodyguards. He said of his children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet: ‘I think it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland’, adding he does not even know ‘how much longer my father has’ to live.
Bitter Harry, 40, raged that ‘the other side’ in the court case had ‘won in keeping me unsafe’. He declared himself ‘obviously pretty gutted about the decision’, but he added: ‘It’s certainly proven that there is no way to win this through the courts – wish someone had told me that beforehand. But yeah, the decision has been a surprise as well as not a surprise.’
Figures released today via a Freedom of Information request show that the Home Office has spent £656,324 of public money successfully fighting the case – so far. The Home Office said this figure could yet rise, because ‘further costs may be included at a later date, for example costs relating to the period prior to 2 May that have not yet been captured’.
The legal fees included more than £241,000 on barristers, £394,000 on solicitors at the Government Legal Department, and £3,800 in court fees. Harry’s own legal costs have not been revealed, but could be similar.
Meghan and Harry in New York where they are believed to have had police protection, according to reports
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, pictured as he rejected Harry’s appeal saying the original security decision had been a ‘predictable’ and even ‘sensible’ reaction to Megxit
The Duke of Sussex returned to London to attend the two-day hearing at the Court of Appeal, to argue that his family could not safely visit his homeland without police protection
The Duke and his family pictured together at Christmas. He flew to London in April to fight for security and, after losing, said it was ‘sad I won’t be able to show my children my homeland’
Within hours of the Appeal Court judgment, Harry declared in his bombshell interview: ‘This is a good old-fashioned Establishment stitch-up – and that is what it feels like’.
He claimed there was a big injustice, and compared himself – born with security risks – to politicians such as prime ministers who seek public office and are then guaranteed Scotland Yard protection for life. He said: ‘Other people have been protected, people who have made a choice for public office – why wouldn’t you be comfortable with someone in my position, who has given 35 years’ service to his country, including two tours of Afghanistan…I was born into this position. I was born into those risks, and they have only increased over time.’
‘I love my country and always have done. I think it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.’
At the time, Buckingham Palace said: ‘All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion’, with a source adding: ‘It would have been constitutionally improper for His Majesty to intervene while this matter was being considered by the Government and reviewed by the Courts.’
The Home Office declined to comment. The Duke of Sussex’s office was contacted for comment.
