By Molly Claire Goddard
3:28pm PDT, Oct 14, 2025
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According to
a source, Prince Harry wrote to newly appointed Home Secretary
Shabana Mahmood to request a risk assessment over U.K. taxpayer-funded security rights. The High Court previously sided with the English government after the Duke of Sussex appealed the decision to take away his security detail, which he lost when he retired from his official royal duties in 2020. He now hopes a fresh review will have a different result. "While he realizes this will not be top of the incoming secretary's in-tray, it is something which should have happened a long time ago. We have had the can kicked down the road for quite a while now, but all he's asking is for Ravec [the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, which is overseen by the Home Office] to abide by its own rules which state that [a review] should be conducted each year. The last one for the duke was in 2019," a source told
The Times.
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Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams does not think Prince Harry's latest machinations will sit well with King Charles III. "Harry may get the review he wants. However, his behavior bodes ill for his hopes for reconciliation with his father," Fitzwilliams said. "[Harry] wants himself and his family to be on a special list of protected persons, but it would not be proper for the monarch to intervene on this issue."
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Richard Fitzwilliams emphasized how desperate Prince Harry is to have security protection. "Although legal avenues have now been exhausted, his appeal to the Home Secretary revives the issue and may be followed, as he stated in his interview with the BBC, by an appeal to the Prime Minister," Fitzwilliams said. "The tragic death of
Princess Diana and the way it traumatized Harry clearly influences his fears for his family. Recent
incidents involving a stalker will have exacerbated those fears. … Harry, after he lost his appeal, went on the BBC for half an hour, in an emotional interview where he appeared to suggest his father could have arranged this issue for him and that courtiers were plotting against him."
