It has been revealed that police were called to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s £11 million California mansion nine times in nine months.
In July of last year, the couple and their one-year-old son Archie moved into the exclusive Montecito neighborhood.
Since then, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office has responded to nine alerts, including twice during the holidays to pick up a trespasser who had traveled to the Sussexes’ home from Ohio.
The alarm system on the property has also been triggered five times.
July 2020: Police were called four times, three for ‘alarm activations’ and one for a phone request.
August 2020: A ‘Miscellaneous Priority Incident
November: Alarm activation
Christmas Eve: Nicholas Brooks allegedly trespassed and was let off with a warning
Boxing Day: Brooks arrived again and was arrested
February 2021: Alarm activation
The data, obtained under Freedom of Information laws by the PA news agency, was made public after the couple revealed their security concerns in an explosive interview with.
The couple shares their luxury neighborhood with a number of other celebrities, including their friend Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres.
Officers were called four times in July of last year, after Harry and Meghan relocated to Montecito from Los Angeles, where they had been staying temporarily since leaving Canada at the start of the pandemic.
One call is labeled as a phone request, while the others are labeled as ‘alarm activations,’ and they all occurred in the early morning hours.
An August request was labeled as ‘Misc Priority Incdnt,’ and a further alert was issued in November.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to the property at 4:13 p.m. on Christmas Eve after a man was accused of trespassing.
Nickolas Brooks, 37, of Ohio, was given a warning at first, but when he returned on Boxing Day at 2.54pm, he was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor trespassing.
The second call was classified as ‘Property Crimes,’ according to police, and Brooks had traveled to California from Ohio. Police later released him.
Brooks later admitted to being ‘high’ when he trespassed on the house, and he has a previous conviction for his role in an attack that left a man with a broken bone in his face, according to.
He said: ‘I don’t know why I went to their place, that’s kind of where I ended up. I drove across the country – I know it’s crazy.
‘I’ve been told to stay away and that I’m never allowed back there but I don’t have to appear in court. I was in jail for a night and they told me to stay away in future.’
The most recent call came in at 2.21 a.m. on February 16 of this year, and it was recorded as the alarm going off. Harry and Meghan’s representatives declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the calls.
Following their interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey in March, the couple’s security arrangements made headlines.
The duchess, who is expecting a daughter, said she wrote to Harry’s family pleading with them not to remove his personal protection officers, warning him that he was facing death threats.
In the Oprah interview, Prince Harry claimed that while the Sussexes were in Canada, he was told that “at short notice security was going to be removed.”
Meghan also claimed that because she did not make her son a prince, he would not receive police protection. However, it is believed that round-the-clock police protection was removed when they stepped down as working royals following a meeting of the government body that oversees protection.
Then, according to reports, Prince Charles stated that he would not fund their private security out of his own pocket.
Harry said: ‘I was born into this position. The risk was passed down to me. That came as a surprise to me.’ Harry revealed to Oprah Winfrey that they were informed’short notice’ that their police security detail would be terminated. ‘Their justification was a change in status,’ the prince explained, adding that he ‘pushed back.’
Former Metropolitan Police royalty protection unit commander Dai Davies said the couple’s plans were “utterly unrealistic” and could have jeopardized British police.
Mr Davies was ‘astonished’ that the couple expected British taxpayers to foot the bill, which was estimated to be £4 million per year. He added: ‘It was utterly unrealistic to think they could continue to have their royal protection team working in America – in fact it would have put their [police] lives at risk.’ UK officers cannot carry guns under US laws or access intelligence about potential threats.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will have no US-funded Secret Service bodyguards after they move to California from Canada in March 2020, according to Donald Trump, who was president at the time.
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.
‘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”.’
Last March, UK police escorted the couple from Canada to California, but the officers were then summoned back to London.
Tyler Perry, the media mogul whose house they used in Los Angeles, then hired private security for them. After moving into their own mansion in Montecito, they now pay for their own security. According to the couple’s friends, the cost of the bodyguards is ‘exorbitant.’
