Prince Harry received full publicly-funded security protection until he chose to step back from his royal duties and moved to California with Meghan Markle in March 2020

Prince Harry will likely get “sympathy” from the public amid his current predicament, it has been claimed by a royal expert.

The Duke of Sussex recently won the right to take his case to the Appeal Court against the High Court’s decision that the level of protection he and his family receive in Britain, “which is decided on a case-by-case basis”, is reasonable.

The Court of Appeal has said it will listen to his challenge following a direct application from Harry’s lawyers, who said the prince had been granted permission to appeal. Harry first began the action after the Home Office, the ministry responsible for policing, in February 2020 cut off his right to automatic personal police security while in the UK.

Harry and Meghan stepped back from their roles as senior working royals in 2020 ( 
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Harry, in addition to other senior royals, had received full publicly-funded security protection until he chose to step back from his royal duties and moved to California with Meghan Markle in March 2020. It was after this that the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) decided in April not to allow Harry the same amount of protection as he previously had been given after he stopped being a “full-time working member of the royal family”.

Speaking exclusively to The Mirror about this situation, royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said: “His attempt to pay personally for extra police protection, has the obvious disadvantage that it would create a two-tier system and, as expected, failed in court.

“However, he is haunted by what happened to his mother and there is a threat by far-right extremists to him and his family. The granting of full taxpayer-funded protection for those who are not full-time working royals is likely to be difficult to obtain, but in his particular case, there will be some sympathy for what he sees as his predicament.”

“It may well be that it is ruled that he and his family could be included in the ‘Other VIP Category’, but the legal costs of his appeal will be substantial. Threat by far-right extremists and terrorists too,” Mr Fitzwilliams added.