Prince Harry made three errors in the bombshell interview he gave to the BBC after his appeal against a decision to downgrade his UK security failed, a PR expert has said. The Duke of Sussex’s high-level police protection was removed by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after he and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and moved to the US.

The 40-year-old challenged the move in a long-running battle through the courts, but when it was rejected by the Court of Appeal he immediately gave an interview to the BBC blasting the decision. He urged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to intervene and said his father, King Charles, would not speak to him over the furore. However, the Duke also said he wanted reconciliation with his family.

David Yelland, a former editor of The Sun newspaper and now a public relations adviser, said he had great sympathy for Prince Harry but added: “I also think he’s making a whole series of mistakes.”

In the latest episode of the When It Hits the Fan podcast on BBC Radio 4, Mr Yelland summarised three key errors he said the Duke made.

Firstly, he said Harry “went in hot”, adding: “You never go into an interview hot with your blood up. You have to be cool, and he wasn’t cool. You can see it in his body language and what he said.”

Secondly, Mr Yelland said the Duke “was not prepared because he thought he was going to win” the case, before adding: “And then the third mistake, which he made probably because he was angry and he did expect to win, is that he volunteered what has become an uncontrollable global news story.”

During the interview, Harry spoke of the King’s cancer treatment and said he did not know “how much longer my father has left”. His words were widely criticised for raising speculation about Charles’s health.

“This interview didn’t need to be like this,” said Mr Yelland. “It could have been so much better, or maybe it didn’t need to happen at all, now.”

Mr Yelland’s co-host Simon Lewis, who was communications secretary to Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, said the “central tenet of PR is often timing – when you choose to do things, and secondly how you choose to do them”.

He added: “There was probably someone advising Harry to go on the offensive straight away after the decision.

“His difficult messages about how he believes he’s been treated were delivered very directly to say the least.”

Mr Lewis believes the Duke could have waited before speaking out and said: “Perhaps he should have delivered some of his messages so much more elegantly – as you say, that reference to how much longer he’s got.

“A less accusatory approach might have resulted in more sympathy.”

The Duke, who now lives in California with Meghan and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, said in the interview that he could not bring his family to the UK without proper security.