Latest news with #RoyalProtection
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The TRUTH behind Prince Harry's legal battle, according to royal experts on PALACE CONFIDENTIAL
A defiant Prince Harry made a rare appearance on British soil as he attended both days of his hearing in April at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The Duke of Sussex, 40, and his legal team were fighting against the Home Office 's decision in 2020 to roll back his publicly funded police protection in the UK because his 'life is at stake'. But just what went on behind court doors? On the latest episode of Palace Confidential, Rebecca English, the Daily Mail's Royal Editor, and Richard Eden, the newspaper's Diary Editor, sat down with host Jo Elvin to separate fact from fiction. Rebecca, who has covered the royal beat since 2004, started by explaining that for Harry, Police Protection Officers, or PPOs, are as familiar to him as 'breathing'. 'He would have grown up with royal protection officers as casually as he would have grown up with a nanny or any other member of staff,' she said. Throughout his time studying at Eton and serving in Afghanistan, Harry was accompanied by a team of PPOs from the Metropolitan Police. 'He was protected at all times of his life,' Rebecca added. 'Bringing us up to the point where Harry decided to leave the Royal Family,' Jo said. 'That's when his status changed in the eyes of those deciding police protection.' Although Rebecca acknowledged she was 'obviously not at the heart of these discussions', she said it was not a 'spontaneous decision' made by Ravec - the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures. 'It wasn't necessarily based on Prince Harry's decision to leave the Royal Family,' she said,' but a big part of it was his decision to move to North America - first to Canada and then to the US. 'That would have been a huge burden on British taxpayers to fund two, including his wife, and obviously his growing family out there because it's not just having a bodyguard with you. 'You have a couple of bodyguards, you have what we call backup officers who are making sure the roads are cleared and the venue you are going to is safe. 'Those people work on rotation and you are having to constantly have people travelling out from the UK to America on a shift pattern. 'I mean, the cost to taxpayers would have been extraordinary and it wouldn't have been something they would have been able to bear.' Citing a source that was 'very well plummed with the negotiations', Rebecca said: 'By the time they got to the Sandringham Summit as we like to call it in January 2020, Harry had already accepted, I've been told, the fact he would lose his Metropolitan Police security. 'He understood if his life was going to be North America - at that point they still thought it was still going to be Canada - that he wouldn't get it. 'The negotiations then were already over what private security he was going to get and who would be paying for that. 'The person who paid for it, my understanding is, for at least the first year after him leaving the Royal Family, was actually his father King Charles. 'Far from being an uncaring father,' Rebecca added. 'He was saying: "Look, I understand you need time to get on your feet financially and this is a significant cost to bear."' Palace insiders told Rebecca that Harry has now 'turned round and cried wolf' because 'he had already acknowledged privately' that he would no longer get police protection. When asked by Jo why the Duke 'embarked on this court case' in the first place, Richard said: 'Harry now says it's because he wanted to expose the workings of this committee [Ravec] and he wants to put daylight on it and make it public. 'But he was obviously wanting to win his case, otherwise why would you embark on it? But now he says it was an "establishment stitch-up" so it is a confused pattern really.' While Harry maintains that he tried to have conversations about his security protection privately, Rebecca said that meant 'putting pressure on his father to intervene'. But Charles could not get involved due to his role as Head of State. 'So Harry decided to basically sue the Home Office in court,' Rebecca said. 'There is a reason why members of the Royal Family don't often go down the legal route because it's uncomfortable, it's complex. 'It was pretty unprecedented,' she added. 'We should make it clear that Harry has offered to pay for the police to protect him while he is in the country,' Jo interjected. 'But is that even possible?' 'No,' Richard replied. 'That's a complete side issue. 'This is not some sort of service that you can buy. It's for the people that the government decide need protecting. Otherwise, it would be a ridiculous situation - you would have a taxpayer funded security that rich people can call up and hire.' Playing Devil's Advocate, Jo said: 'I guess he sees himself as apart from being a rich person and somebody who was born into this royal life.' 'That's his central point,' Richard agreed, 'that he was born into it and so by virtue of that deserves it but so were the rest of the members of the Royal Family and the same rules apply to them.' Senior members of the Royal Family such as Princess Anne are entitled to full protection when carrying out royal engagements but not when on private business such as visiting friends. 'I don't hear Prince Edward or even Prince Andrew taking legal action against the Home Office over it,' Richard said. 'I wouldn't swap my humdrum life for being a member of the Royal Family but I think you have to deal with the cards life deals you with,' Rebecca added. 'There are a lot of people in our country and indeed around the world who are living in abject poverty and have massive health issues so I think sometimes you have got to count your blessings.' After his two-day hearing, Judge Geoffrey Vos concluded that Harry's arguments were 'powerful' but there was not enough legal basis for a challenge.
USA Today
25-04-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
The pope wanted a 'small' funeral. He's getting fighter jets and drone-busters
The pope wanted a 'small' funeral. He's getting fighter jets and drone-busters Security experts say the operation to secure the pope's funeral in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City will be anything but uncomplicated and straightforward. Show Caption Hide Caption Pope Francis funeral date set as Catholics mourn Pope Francis' procession will be held on Wednesday, and his funeral service will take place Saturday April 26. LONDON — Pope Francis specified in his last wishes he wanted a "simple" funeral "without particular decoration." This was in keeping with his aim during his papacy to eschew formalities and bring the Roman Catholic Church closer to the people. Security experts however, say the operation to secure the pope's funeral in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City will be anything but uncomplicated and straightforward. It will be attended by dozens of religious and political leaders from around the world, including President Donald Trump, and thousands of ordinary worshipers. "This is what I would call a 'Grade A' event," said Dai Davies, a former divisional commander in Britain's Metropolitan Police and Head of Royal Protection. Davies' job was to keep the country's royal family, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, safe. 'I fear a world without him': Pope Francis was a global influencer. Here's how he did it. "The queen's funeral, the king's coronation, the Olympics, President Donald Trump's inauguration − the pope's funeral is at that level," he said. "You really only need one element for things to go awry, whether that's someone in the crowd who hates Trump and what he's doing to Ukraine to anything that's happening in the Middle East, from public disorder to crowd control because a lot of people may be hysterical with grief." Matteo Piantedosi, Italy's interior minister, told local media authorities are working on the assumption that about 200 high-profile visitors and their delegations will attend the funeral on April 26, along with a crowd of up to 200,000 well-wishers. Pope Francis, like all popes for the last 500 years, was protected by 135 so-called Swiss Guards, whose striped blue, red and yellow uniforms paired with a feather-topped black helmet belie their elite training in counterintelligence, close-quarters combat and bomb disposal. According to the Corriere della Sera daily newspaper, they are getting substantial backup for the funeral in the form of a tight security ring around the world's smallest country − Vatican City measures just 0.19 square miles − comprised of snipers with high-powered rifles on rooftops and specialist soldiers toting anti-drone bazookas that can disable unauthorized UAVs with radio waves. Who will be the next pope? How papal conclave history provides clues to new candidates Rome's police chief, Marcello Fulvi, has said roughly 8,000 security agents will be on hand, including 2,000 uniformed police officers and another 1,400 plain-clothes ones who will patrol the basilica and other surrounding and nearby areas. Crowd barriers have been erected inside and outside the basilica. NATO fighter jets will enforce a no-fly zone. Anti-aircraft missiles and navy warships are on stand-by. "It's going to be a complex one, on par with anything I've experienced in half a century of security," said Davies. "Don't forget there's also going to be a multitude of protection officers from countries bringing their own people." The ability to instantly and reliably communicate with the potentially hundreds of security teams on the ground protecting each world leader is critical, said Steven Ricciardi, a former Secret Service agent who now directs executive security for Minneapolis-based Corporate Security Advisors. To make it run seamlessly, each country's security team will have a specific person or team within the funeral security that they connect with, he said. The election of a pope can be interrupted, not stopped The pope's funeral will end when his wooden coffin is taken in procession from St. Peter's Basilica to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, the church in Rome where he will be buried. He is upending papal tradition by not being laid to rest in the Vatican grottoes beneath St Peter's. But the security operation does not end there. Attention will quickly turn to the conclave, which is the process when the Vatican's College of Cardinals convenes to elect the next bishop of Rome − the new pope. What to expect after Pope Francis death: I covered two conclaves and a papal funeral In medieval times, cardinals could take years to elect a new pope. Conclaves are much shorter now. Pope Francis was elected the day after the conclave began in 2013. A conclave typically begins 15 to 20 days after the death of a pope. If needed, voting takes place in a series of rounds until a clear winner emerges. Jeffrey Guhin, a professor of religion and culture at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the election of a new pope can be interrupted, but it cannot be stopped. He said the ceremonies and structure of the papal transition are such that even if the unthinkable were to happen, and there were to be a death among the cardinals, or of the newly-elected pope, another could and would be chosen. "There will be a different pope, but there will still be a pope," Guhlin said. One person who knows something about that, at least his imagination does, is Robert Harris. His novel, "The Conclave," was turned into a movie starring actors Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini. In the book, a series of terrorist attacks take place on Catholic institutions during the conclave. One bomb explodes near enough to the Sistine Chapel where the cardinals are meeting that windows are blow in and glass and plaster rain down on the assembly. "It's all there laid out in the rules," he said. "They just continue voting and it's not supposed to be suspended. Outside events are not meant to impinge on it at all." As Pope Francis' funeral: Why are we so fascinated by the papacy? Harris said he included the scene in his book not because he'd come across any research when writing his novel that conclaves had been scenes of violence. "I just wanted a dramatic event that would shake up the story. No more than that." Pope's funeral: the challenges Richard Broadhurst is a former senior British police officer who was in charge of security for the Summer Olympics in London in 2012. He also handled security for the royal wedding of William and Kate − now the Prince and Princess of Wales − in 2011. Broadhurst said one aspect, perhaps an obvious one, that works in the favor of those handling the security operation for the funeral is that the pontiff himself will be safe. (Two attempted attacks on Pope Francis, including one by a suicide bomber, were foiled during a trip to Iraq in 2021, he wrote in his 2025 autobiography. Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in 1981. The would-be assassin was a Turkish national. Some researchers say his motivations remain unclear.) What we know about the pope's family: Francis was born to Italian immigrant parents "He's not a living target. That makes it a bit easier," he said. "Having said that, it's a big event, and there are people out there who, if it suits their purpose, might seek to disrupt it if they believe they can use that oxygen for their publicity." Broadhurst said the fact that the funeral has been called on relatively short notice is a mixed bag in terms of security threats. He said those looking to do harm may not have had ample time to prepare an operation, while organizers, even though they face a myriad of last-minute logistical and technological challenges, will have a funeral plan with every conceivable detail and potential threat long worked out. One trick often used by security personnel is to manipulate the environment to make it less easy to get a clear shot at attendees, said Ricciardi. "You can have them arrive into tents, or underground through service tunnels. That can alleviate line-of-sight issues," he said. Other possibilities include bringing in potted trees and plants, or parking busses and large vehicles in strategic places. "You want to take away the possiblity of any long-range shot," he said. Broadhurst noted before she died, he had a copy of the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II tucked away in his safe for a decade. It was codenamed "London Bridge." He said the biggest security issue facing the pope's funeral may turn out to be the number of VIPs, in particular the "Trump entourage" – the size of the U.S. presidential convoy. He will be accompanied by his wife, first lady Melania Trump. "It's always big, and difficult, when the U.S. president is on the move," he said. Pope Francis' funeral Donald Trump, Prince William among world leaders attending Others dignitaries expected to attend include United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Britain's prime minister and Prince William. Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden also will be there. "Poor old pope," added Davies, who protected Britain's royal family. "He wanted a 'small' funeral. He's not getting one."
