Prince Harry has asked for a judicial review after the Home Office said that Metropolitan Police in the UK could not provide round-the-clock protection to him and his family. He has offered to pay for it but there is no precedent for this and if it is allowed then various other rich, private citizens of the U.K. domiciled abroad can demand protection by paying for it, in future.

Prince Harry lost his taxpayer funded police security in 2020. It was withdrawn after he stepped away from royal duties and moved to America. When they lived in Britain, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s security protection costed U.K. taxpayers about 5 million pounds a year.

When Harry and Meghan moved to the U.S. the then president Donald Trump said that the government would not pay for their security. The couple said that they had arranged for private security in the U.S.

The statement released through email by Harry’s legal representative, on Saturday, said that he wanted to take his two children Archie and Lilibet to his home country but it was too risky without adequate police protection. It said that he would pay for the protection if the Home Office allowed him.

It also mentioned that his security was “compromised” when he visited the U.K. to unveil a statue of his mother Princess Diana, at the Kensington Gardens, in London. The representative said that Harry had decided to make the information public as it had already been leaked by the tabloid media in Britain.

A former head of royal protection Dai Davies told The Sun that the risk level to Harry and his family would have been checked and would have been considered to be too “low” to give him what he was asking for. He also mentioned that there was no precedence in the U,K., where people would pay for their security and that Harry could not “pick and choose” when he wanted or needed it.

Others have also commented that his judicial review gives more ammunition to his detractors though some say that it reinforces the stellar quality of the British police force. As the public debates on his latest actions popular host Piers Morgan called Prince Harry an “entitled hypocrite” after he filed the lawsuit.

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