Police have responded to security alerts at Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Southern California home nine times in as many months, official figures reveal.
Since Harry and Meghan moved in to their Montecito mansion with one-year-old son Archie in July last year, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has dealt with calls recorded as phone requests, alarm activations and property crimes.
The data, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, was released after the couple spoke of their security concerns in their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.
The couple spoke of their security concerns in their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey
Officers were called four times in July last year after Harry and Meghan moved to Montecito from Los Angeles, where they had been temporarily living since leaving Canada at the start of the pandemic.
One call is listed as a phone request while the others are labelled “alarm activations” and all occurred in the early hours of the morning.
An August request is listed as “Misc Priority Incdnt”, while there was a further alarm in November.
At 4.13pm on Christmas Eve, sheriff’s deputies were called to the property after a man was alleged to have trespassed.
Officers returned to the mansion on Boxing Day at 2.54pm for a call listed under “Property Crimes”.
The most recent call was at 2.21am on 16 February this year and is listed as an alarm activation.
Representatives for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office declined to provide further details about the calls.
The couple’s security arrangements hit the news following their tell-all interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey in March.
The duchess, who is pregnant with a daughter, said she sent letters pleading with Harry’s family not to take away his personal protection officers, warning he was facing death threats.
The duke said he never thought he would have his UK taxpayer-funded security detail removed upon deciding to step back from royal duties.
He said: “I was born into this position. I inherited the risk. So that was a shock to me.”
Explaining his decision to leave Canada for the US during the early days of the pandemic, Harry said: “The biggest concern was while we were in Canada, in someone else’s house, I then got told, short notice, that security was going to be removed. By this point, courtesy of the Daily Mail, the world knew our exact location.
“So suddenly it dawned on me – ‘Hang on a second, the borders could be closed, we’re going to have our security removed, who knows how long lockdown is going to be, the world knows where we are, it’s not safe, it’s not secure, we probably need to get out of here’.”
