The Duke said he could forgive “my father, my brother and my stepmother” for the many disagreements of the past but acknowledged that “some members of the Royal family” would never forgive him for writing a memoir, or for “lots of things”.
He has previously revealed that he has enough material to write another book, having held back disclosures for which the King and the Prince of Wales would not “ever forgive” him.
He said of the ongoing rift: “There have been so many disagreements, differences between me and some of my family. This current situation that has been ongoing for five years with regards to human life and safety is the sticking point. It’s the only thing that’s left.”
The Duke had argued that he was singled out for “unjustified and inferior treatment” when he was denied the right to automatic police protection after quitting royal duties. But on Friday (local time), the Court of Appeal ruled that a personal grievance did not equate to a valid legal argument.
Harry and Meghan have made no secret of their need to rely on commercial ventures to fund their new, independent lives, including their own security provision.
The Duke said his legal battle with the Home Office had “uncovered my worst fears”.
“We have lost the appeal, but the other side have won in keeping me unsafe, so again there is a lot of question marks that a lot of people will have,” he said. “I have all of the truth, I have all of the knowledge now, throughout the legal process.”
In an apparent reference to the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, he said he had discovered “that some people want history to repeat itself, which is pretty dark”.
Asked who that was, he replied: “I’m not going to share at this point. I know all the names of the people that were involved in this process.”
The Duke, convinced that the King has the power to reinstate his police protection, said: “There is a lot of power and control in my father’s hands.
“Ultimately, this whole thing could be resolved through him. Not necessarily by intervening but by stepping aside, allowing the experts to do what is necessary and to carry out an RMB [Risk Management Board] analysis.”
In a rare intervention, a Buckingham Palace spokesman refuted the Duke’s allegations, saying: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”
Royal sources insisted that it would have been constitutionally improper for the King to intervene in the legal process and noted that the chair of Ravec [the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, responsible for VIP security arrangements] was responsible for the committee’s decisions with members of the Royal household simply advising on specific matters.
The Duke said the ruling handed down by the Court of Appeal felt like “a good old fashioned establishment stitch-up”.
He said he had always loved his country and missed “parts of the UK” but added that, having lost the appeal, he could not see a world in which he could bring back his wife and children.
“I think it’s quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland,” he added. “What I’m struggling to forgive, and will probably always struggle to forgive, is that a decision that was made in 2020 that affects me every single day, and that is knowingly putting me and my family in harm’s way.
“Everybody knew that they were putting us at risk in 2020, and they hoped that me knowing that risk would force us to come back.”
He said he could only come to the UK “safely” if he was invited, suggesting that was now the only circumstances in which he would be offered state-backed security, and said he would “ask the Prime Minister to step in”, adding: “I would ask Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, to look at this very, very carefully.
“I would ask her to review Ravec and its members, because if it is an expert body, then what is the Royal Household’s role there, if it is not to influence and decide what they want for the members of their household?”
The Duke has said he believes his police protection was withdrawn in order to trap him and Meghan in the UK and that the decision was imposed upon him “as some form of punishment”.
He said: “Because I decided to remove myself eventually from the institution, my life got devalued from the highest score to the lowest score overnight. You have to question, why wasn’t I put through the same risk management board that everybody else was put through, including members of my family?”
The ruling, handed down by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean and Lord Justice Edis on Friday afternoon, left the Duke “devastated”.
Last month, he flew to London to attend a two-day hearing at the Court of Appeal, during which his barrister argued that the Ravec, a Home Office committee, had failed to adhere to its own policies.
Vos told the court that the Duke had put forward “powerful and moving arguments” and that it was plain he “felt badly treated by the system”.
However, he added: “I concluded, having studied the detail of the extensive documentation, I could not say that the Duke’s sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for the challenge to Ravec’s decision. Accordingly, the Duke of Sussex’s appeal is dismissed.”
The appeal was widely considered to be Prince Harry’s last roll of the dice, bringing to an end a three-and-a-half-year legal battle that he admitted was even more significant than his legal crusade against the tabloid press. “This one always mattered the most,” he told The Telegraph last month.
It is not yet known whether he will now apply for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a witness statement filed to the High Court, the Duke said: “The UK is my home. The UK is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the US.
“That cannot happen if it’s not possible to keep them safe when they are on UK soil. 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.”
When he and Meghan first announced their plans to quit royal duties, they insisted that “effective security” would still be needed to protect them.
But the Ravec concluded that a “flexible and tailored approach” was best suited to the Duke’s new circumstances. The couple’s plan to live abroad as private citizens did not “fit readily” into any category in its framework, meaning that automatic Metropolitan Police protection was no longer appropriate and would be withdrawn.
Instead, the couple were required to give 30 days’ notice of any travel plans so each visit could be assessed on its merits.
When the Duke was told of the decision in early 2020, he was furious, demanding to be given the names of those responsible.
In an email sent to Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary at the time, he expressed “disbelief”, insisting that he be told who had put him in a position of such vulnerability and risk. He offered to pay for his security, but was told the Met was not for hire.
The Duke applied for a judicial review in September 2021, shortly after a visit to Britain when he felt his security was compromised.
The challenge was based on an alleged lack of transparency about Ravec’s composition and processes. He also claimed he had been “singled out” and treated “less favourably” than others by Ravec, which had subjected him to “unlawful and unfair treatment”.
His lawyer, Shaheed Fatima, KC, said the committee had also failed to consider the potential “impact on the UK’s reputation” of a successful attack on the Duke, “bearing in mind his status, background and profile within the Royal family”.
The Duke believed he faced a greater risk than his late mother, with “additional layers of racism and extremism”, she told the court. Last February, he “comprehensively lost” the case when Justice Lane ruled that Ravec’s decision had not been irrational or procedurally unfair.
‘Compelling reasons for decision’
Prince Harry was granted leave to challenge the judgment in June, when the Court of Appeal concluded that there was a “real prospect of success” in his argument that Ravec had not followed its own written policy.
It found that Justice Lane may have erred in concluding the Duke was not in a comparable position to those in an “Other VIP Category” who receive state security.
The three-judge appeal court panel heard last month that Ravec did not apply its normal terms of reference to the Duke nor carry out its usual individual risk assessment.
Ravec’s policy was not set in stone but rather “inward facing and unpublished”, the judges concluded, noting that the committee had “unrivalled expertise and experience in the field of royal protection”.
The judges also noted that a Risk Management Board analysis was not required because of the case-by-case basis on which decisions would be based under the new arrangement, pointing out that Ravec obtained three threat assessments for the Duke before making its decision.
Vos said Ravec had provided “compelling reasons” for its decision, adding: “The Duke was, in effect, stepping in and out of the cohort of protection provided by Ravec.
“Outside the UK, he was outside that cohort, but when in the UK his security would be considered as appropriate depending on the circumstances. It was impossible to say that this reasoning was illogical or inappropriate. Indeed, it seemed sensible.”
‘Unintended consequence of decision to step back’
The judge acknowledged that Prince Harry and Meghan had not anticipated a reduction in their security provision when stepping back from royal duties.
“From the Duke of Sussex’s point of view, something may indeed have gone wrong, in that an unintended consequence of his decision to step back from Royal duties and spend the majority of his time abroad has been that he has been provided with a more bespoke, and generally lesser, level of protection than when he was in the UK,” he said.
“But that did not, of itself, give rise to a legal complaint.”
The judge said the only question before the court was whether Sir Richard Mottram, then the chairman of Ravec, had failed to follow the committee’s policy “without good reason”. He concluded that he “had indeed” failed to follow the policy, but with good reason.
The Duke’s only outstanding legal case is his joint claim against Associated Newspapers, scheduled to go to trial in January next year.
The Duke, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, and Sir Elton John are among seven high-profile claimants suing the newspaper group over the alleged misuse of private information. Associated Newspapers denies the claims.
