Prince Harry was escorted from a High Court hearing about his security arrangements today shielded by his burly bodyguards after an agitated supporter disrupted proceedings.
The bespectacled supporter – a diminutive, shaven-headed black woman who looked in her 50s – had attracted attention after arriving late to the public gallery, and repeatedly shifting in her seat and fiddling and fidgeting with two phones and a notebook.
The Duke’s long-term head security man David Langdown, 57, and another burly aide appeared to focus on the woman, anxious if a threat to his safety was present.
When the hearing broke so the public and press could leave, before a ‘secret’ session involving security details could begin, Langdown and the other bodyguard ensured that as the Duke was led out of the room at the Royal Courts of Justice, they were between him and the woman.
As he passed her, within touching distance, the woman suddenly shouted out, indistinctly, what appeared to be ‘I support you Prince Harry’.
As the Duke was hurried out, the woman turned to the press gallery and said: ‘If you’re members of the press, you’re the reason he’s not in England.’
She was then kept to one side by a member of court security, before being led out of the building, away from members of the public.
As she was led out, the Daily Mail approached to ask what she was talking about. She refused to say.
Only after she had been taken away did the Duke return, accompanied by his watchful security, for the secret session.
Earlier, as the Home Secretary’s case was made, Prince Harry at one stage appeared to throw his pen down in exasperation and pull a face expressing disbelief.
The High Court heard earlier today that the Prince’s taxpayer-funded security was cut after his highly unusual decision to quit royal duties and ‘spend most of the time abroad’.
The Duke of Sussex has flown 5,000 miles from California to attend a two-day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to win automatic state security for him and his family.
He has claimed he was ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) stripped him of his top-level security in February 2020, following Megxit.
But Sir James Eadie KC, representing the Home Office, has said it had discretion to strip his guaranteed full time police security without consulting the Risk Management Board (RMB) quango.
‘RMB risk analysis is the usual approach in usual cases,’ he told the High Court today. ‘But there is nothing about the appellant’s [Prince Harry’s] announcement in January 2020 that he was to step back from his role in the Royal family, and spend most of the time abroad, that was usual.’
Prince Harry arrived at the High Court shortly after 10am and waved to fans gathered near the entrance.
He then made his way to his seat in the courtroom and sat behind his barristers with a notepad, pen and bottle of water in front of him.
The California-based royal is challenging the dismissal of his High Court legal action against the Home Office.
It stems from the decision by Ravec that he should receive a different degree of protection when in the country of his birth because he stepped down as a full-time royal. The case has cost the British taxpayer £500,000 so far.
Prince Harry’s lawyer Shaheed Fatima KC insisted that Ravec failed to follow its own guidelines and should have commissioned an assessment of the Duke’s security needs from the Risk Management Board (RMB).
Ms Fatima said: ‘The appellant [the Duke of Sussex] does not accept that bespoke means better – in fact, in his position, it means he has been singled out for different, inferior treatment.’
She added that the judge who previously ruled Ravec had acted correctly was mistaken.Â
But barrister Sir James, speaking for the Home Secretary, told the High Court that his extremely unusual withdrawal from Royal duties changed everything.
He said it was ‘hard to imagine’ someone more experienced and better placed than the chair of Ravec to make a bespoke decision about how the Duke’s security arrangements should change to accommodate ‘the unique and unusual circumstances of the appellant [Prince Harry]’.
And Sir James denied the Duke was treated unfairly and said: ‘He was not being singled out – on the contrary, the process being adopted had positive advantages for him.’Â
While the court was hearing the Home Secretary’s argument against his appeal, Prince Harry wrote detailed observations densely packed on to a blue post-it note.
His solicitor then passed it forward through his team of four barristers until it reached his lead KC Ms Fatima.
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle ‘felt forced to step back’ from frontline royal duties in 2020 ‘as they considered they were not being protected by the institution’, Ms Fatima KC said yesterday.
But hitting back the Home Office’s barrister said the Duke of Sussex’s appeal ‘involves a continued failure to see the wood for the trees’.
Opening Prince Harry’s appeal yesterday morning, Ms Fatima said he had been ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when he was stripped of the high level of protection he was previously given by the Metropolitan Police.
‘When Ravec made its February 2020 decision about the appellant’s protective security, it did not apply its own terms of reference to that decision-making process’, she said, adding that Ravec came up with a ‘different and so-called ‘bespoke process’.
‘The appellant [Prince Harry] does not accept that “bespoke” means “better”. In fact, in his submission, it means that he has been singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment’.
In written submissions submitted to the Court of Appeal yesterday, Harry’s KC, viewed as a legal trailblazer because in 2016 she became Britain’s first hijab-wearing barrister, said: ‘This appeal concerns the most fundamental right: to safety and security of person’.
She continued: ‘On January 8 2020, (the Duke of Sussex) and his wife felt forced to step back from the role of full-time official working members of the royal family as they considered they were not being protected by the institution, but they wished to continue their duties in support of the late Queen as privately funded members of the royal family’.
Ms Fatima later said that Harry was ‘not in a position to make any informed representations to Ravec’.
She added: ‘(His) security does not appear to have been discussed at any formal Ravec meeting and there are no official notes or detailed minutes recording the approach to be taken to (his) security and the rationale for it.’
The Duke of Sussex landed from Los Angeles on Sunday but his father spent the weekend at Highgrove, his private Gloucestershire home, resting ahead of this week’s busy State Visit to Italy.
His Majesty then flew directly to Rome from RAF Brize Norton with Queen Camilla on Monday afternoon.Â
It came after the Mail’s Richard Eden revealed Harry’s skipped the wedding of one of his so-called ‘band of brothers’ – despite being invited and in the UK.
Harry believes he is entitled to armed bodyguards, paid for by the British taxpayer, and is fighting a 2020 decision to reduce the level of security after he and Meghan Markle stepped back from life as working royals and emigrated to the United States.
He has expressed safety concerns about returning to the UK with his wife and children.
The King and his son are believed to have differing views over Harry’s decision to pursue his legal fight with the Home Office, which has cost the British taxpayer £500,000 so far.
Harry has been taking legal action in the UK over a decision made by Ravec in February 2020 over the level of protection he should receive when in the country.
The High Court previously heard that his ‘status’ had changed as a result of no longer being a ‘full-time working member of the Royal Family’.
But Harry has argued his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet cannot ‘feel at home’ or ‘safe’ in the UK unless his police protection is fully restored.
According to Ms Fatima KC, when Ravec stripped the prince of his top-level security in February 2020, shortly after he and wife Meghan had announced they were stepping back from royal duties and relocating to North America, it did not follow his own rules.
Ms Fatima said according to its own guidelines, Ravec should have commissioned an assessment of Prince Harry’s particular security needs from another specialist body, the Risk Management Board. It has failed to do so, instead reaching its decision by ‘bespoke’ means.
Ms Fatima said: ‘The appellant [the Duke of Sussex] does not accept that bespoke means better – in fact, in his position, it means he has been singled out for different, inferior treatment.’
The hearing before Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean, and Lord Justice Edis is due to conclude today with a decision expected in writing at a later date.
It came as MailOnline reveal that the King is not thought to have met with his youngest son when he flew into London from California at the weekend ahead of his High Court showdown.
