Name: Prince Harry tells BBC he wants ‘reconciliation’ with Royal Family | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-05-03T00:08:14.000Z
Duration: 31 min 54 s
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Now in an exclusive interview with BBC News, Prince Harry has said he is devastated about losing his latest legal challenge over the security he receives when he's in the UK.

The Duke of Sussex's taxpayer funded protection was downgraded back in 2020 after he stopped being a working royal.

Well he appealed arguing he was singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment.

But three judges at the Court of Appeal today rejected that appeal.

Well now, following that judgment, he's told the BBC that it is currently impossible for him and his family to return to the UK.

He's also said that because of the current situation his father, the King, isn't speaking to him.

Well Prince Harry is currently living in California where he's been speaking to our correspondent Ned Atorfik and we can bring you that extended interview now.

Obviously pretty pretty gutted about the decision.

We thought it was going to go our way but it certainly have, it certainly has proven that there was no way to win this through the through the courts.

I wish someone had told me that beforehand.

But yeah it's, the decision has been a surprise as well as not a surprise.

So yeah for the time being it's impossible for me to take my family back to the UK safely.

You're obviously very deeply affected by this.

What memories, experiences had you hoped your children Archie and Lilibet would have had that you think they won't be able to now with this decision?

Well for a start the the only time that I've come back to the UK is sadly for for funerals or court cases with the the odd charitable function where I can in between that.

I put myself at risk for that but I I will continue on with a life of public service so I will always support the charities and the people that mean so much to me.

I can't see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point and the things that they the things that they're going to miss is well everything.

You know I love my country I always have done despite what some people in that country have done.

I miss parts of the UK of course I do and I think that it's really quite sad that I won't be able to show you know my children my homeland.

And as you say you've gone back several times during this years-long battle.

What about the security arrangements that were in place made you feel it unsafe for you and your family?

There's only so much that I can say because of the redaction process and the national security matters at hand but everything because in 2020 beginning of 2020 I was scored the highest as far as risk was concerned and then overnight I was reduced to the lowest without actually going through the Risk Management Board.

So when one does question how that is even possible and also the motive behind that at the time and that was in 2020 and as hard as it is to appreciate or understand why the decision was made the way that it was in 2020 the hardest thing for me has been the fix of that decision for the last five years.

The fact that I still haven't had a Risk Management Board assessment done for me over the last five years.

Everybody else within this group of people get it at the minimum once a year.

So again I would not have taken this this far if I didn't have compelling evidence of facts that reveal why the decision was made and I'm sitting here today talking to you where you know I've we've we've we've lost the we've lost the appeal but the other side have won in keeping me unsafe.

So again there's a lot of question marks that a lot of people will have.

I have all of the truth I have all the knowledge now throughout the legal process I've uncovered my worst fears and to now know today based on this judgment that there was no legal framework that constrains the decisions of this body Ravec of which the Royal Household sit on and I didn't know that until this legal process in 2021.

One of the first things my lawyer said to me was as disclosure started or as this started she turned around and said did you know that the Royal Household sat on Ravec and my jaw hit the floor.

Well I want to ask you about that because the King's private secretary sits on Ravec now.

Do you wish your father had intervened despite how that may have looked?

I've never asked him to intervene I've asked him to step out I step out of the way and let the experts do their job.

This Ravec committee is an expert committee full of professionals plus the Royal Household and the Royal Household don't have any role on that on the Ravec committee other than the helping influence the decisions based on members of the Royal Family and five years later every single visit that I do back to the UK has to go through the Royal Household.

My representative on the Ravec committee still to this day is the Royal Household.

That is not a decision that I choose I am forced to go through the Royal Household and accept that they are putting my best interests forward during these conversations and deliberations.

So no I haven't asked my father to intervene.

The whole point of a risk management board which as I said everybody else gets but I haven't never been given since back end of 2019 was the last one that I was given.

The whole point of that is to have a board and a it is a system and an assessment that is designed to be non-bias and to avoid interference.

What I know throughout this legal process is the interference that was created came from the Royal Household and the Ravec chair at the time who I believe I can talk about because he's no longer there Sir Richard Well the first people that he went to go and see was the Royal Household at the Palace.

So whether it's the media or whether it's anybody else that claims that the Royal Household and my father my family don't have any decision-making capabilities on Ravec well then what's their role?

They're not experts what's their role on that?

And Sir Richard Mottram emailed back in January of 2020 that an RMB would be necessary before taking my security away.

After his visit to the Palace that RMB that was planned was abandoned in favour of alternative governance measures.

What the court decided today was that they were justified for four reasons to not have that review and a major part of that is because you're no longer a working royal a change in your status.

I am part of what I'm part of and I can never escape that.

My circumstances will always be the same but with a specific answer to the question there are comparisons that exist and again I have to be careful what I say but I think it would be quite shocking for the British public and the public at large to understand or know that in fact many people do know this that people who leave public office receive lifetime protection regardless of whether there are threats or risks to them.

So for me with a whole list of risks and threats that were known about in 2020 and that have only increased over time including the al-Qaeda threat that was published and talked about recently, completely disregarded, thrown away, ignored because for me security was made conditional on having that official role.

That role that everybody knows that myself and my wife wish to carry on but was stopped from being able to do that back in 2020.

What do you say to those who ask why should the taxpayer pay for your police security if you have your own private security?

What's your response to those who say you're getting police protection on a case-by-case basis?

I don't know why you ask that question again but in three parts if you could because you just put three very very important questions together and I cannot possibly answer all three of them at the same time.

What do you say to those who ask why the UK taxpayer should pay for police security you have your own private security?

Well first off private security can only do so much.

Again I can't go into the details of that but I think most people will be able to work that out.

One of the major things is they don't have jurisdiction in a foreign country or in any country they don't Police protection is effective protection which is what my grandmother made very clear that we needed.

With regard to the to the taxpayer part of it I don't need to go into detail how much the Royal Family costs or how much protection costs.

What I will say is that some of the British press, British tabloid press, did a very good job in campaigning to have our security removed by quoting figures such as 20 million pounds and through this disclosure process I've seen constituents in the UK write to their MP saying as a taxpayer I don't want to pay for Meghan and Harry's security at this cost.

They're literally quoting headlines from British newspapers.

Those figures are obviously grossly exaggerated by about 18-19 times and further to that if you know that other people are being protected, people that have made a choice for public office, then why wouldn't you be comfortable, happy with someone in my position who's given 35 years service to his country, two tours of Afghanistan and the threats and risks to my life.

I was born into this position, I was born into those risks and they've only increased over time along with my marriage to Meghan and the the frenzy across media, mainstream media and social media that I created.

I guess on top of that as well probably what people don't know but that is mentioned in the the judgment today, RABEC protect private citizens.

I was made a private citizen by the Royal Household, not by RABEC, by the Royal Household.

I can't be a private citizen, I will never be seen as a private citizen, I will never be treated as a private citizen, not by the media, not by most people and certainly not by anybody that wants to harm me or my wife or our kids.

So I think once people realise or understand that there are private citizens who have never played any role in public office and never will play any public role, that because they are high-risk they are protected at taxpayers expense and rightly so because it will affect not only with that person could they end up in hospital or worse on UK soil but it comes down to impact and it comes down down to the reputational impact of the UK if that person or those people are injured on UK soil.

But apparently for me that doesn't matter.

And just to be absolutely clear, what is the difference between the top-level security you say you should have and the security you are given on this case-by-case basis?

So the details of the security I can't talk about.

All I will say is that the last RMB assessment I was given I scored the highest.

The only person within the family that scored anywhere near that was my grandmother.

This case-by-case basis has been used by the by Ravik and also by large sections of the British press to say what's the big problem?

You're given something on a case-by-case basis.

Unfortunately that case-by-case basis is separated by the reason for my visit.

Just to give you more context on that, it's not really a case-by-case basis.

If you're invited to the UK by your family then we will give you security.

If you come for any other reason then you will get a very low amount of security.

I'm not going to confirm what that is but it is completely insufficient and somewhere along the line people have talked about the fact that really all it is is someone on the end of a phone.

No matter how much private security I have around me, there's only so much that I can do and operate and function within the UK when it comes to supporting my charities, visiting my friends, all of these things.

I've been treated very, very, very differently to everybody else that exists.

All examples that exist, past, present, I have been singled out.

You've spoken very openly about the fact that you think you've been punished for leaving the monarchy.

Who specifically do you think is trying to punish you?

Now I know that security was used as leverage.

I think what really worries me more than anything else about today's decision, depending on what happens next, is that it's set a new precedent that security can be used to control members of the family and effectively what it does is imprison other members of the family from being able to choose a different life.

If for me security is conditional on having an official role, one that both myself and my wife wish to carry on but then was rejected, not by RABEC, was rejected by the royal household and the result of that is you lose your security, that basically says that you can't live outside of outside of their control if you want to be safe.

But it's a pretty hard decision there and I think if you strip away all the noise of everything that's been said by other people and all the noise that's been created around this, if you strip that all away, I think what people will hear is that the only thing that I've been asking for throughout this whole process is safety, both when I was part of the institution and when we left.

And the important piece here, Netta, is for me and my wife, again I'm not sure how much I can say, but I can never leave the royal family.

That is my family, that is my larger family.

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Prince Harry tells BBC he wants ‘reconciliation’ with Royal Family | BBC News

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