Prince Harry could use Taylor Swift as an example to get his police protection reinstated when he visits the UK.
The Duke of Sussex launched a legal case after his automatic police protection was removed following his decision to step back from life as a senior member of the Royal Family in 2020, and has even offered to personally pay for police protection when he is in the country.
While the prince lost the original legal battle with the Home Office earlier this year, he is reportedly set to challenge the ruling in the Court of Appeal in April.
According to The Telegraph, a source has now revealed that The Duke of Sussex, 40, may use Taylor Swift as an example in his appeal after Scotland Yard decided to provide the US pop singer with a taxpayer-funded blue-light police escort this summer.
The police escort came about for Swift during her Wembley Stadium shows after she was forced to cancel her gigs in Vienna as a result of terrorism threats, with Andrea Swift, mother and manager, threatening to cancel the gigs unless this additional security was put in place.
Prince Harry reportedly believes the police escort for Swift shows an inconsistency in the way cases are dealt with.
Although the duke’s spokesman declined to comment on the case, a source close to the situation told The Telegraph that this example shows how exemptions to security policy could be made.
They said: “The decision to provide a police escort for Taylor Swift has exposed troubling inconsistencies in how protection decisions are reached.
“Whilst Prince Harry is denied protection despite consistent, long-standing and well-documented threats, we saw extraordinary measures being taken here – including the Met seeking counsel from the Attorney General – for a visiting performer – because that performer’s manager and parent threatened to pull her out if she wasn’t given the protection they wanted for her.
“The dangers to Taylor Swift were and are real, but so are those faced by Prince Harry and his family.
“There may well be no imminent threat, but there is always risk, risk that can be mitigated by the tactics used by the Met Police on the day.”
Prince Harry admitted in an interview that he would not bring his wife Meghan Markle, 43, and his two children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, to the UK unless the issue around his security case was sorted.
During an interview for an ITV1 documentary, Tabloids On Trial, Harry said: “All it takes is for one lone actor who reads this stuff to act on what they’ve read.
“And whether it’s a knife or acid, these are things that are genuine concerns for me. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.”
