Police called to Harry and Meghan’s California home nine times since July

Police have been called to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s southern California mansion nine times in as many months, it has emerged.

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Photograph: Harpo Productions/Reuters

Santa Barbara county sheriff’s office has responded to calls listed as phone requests, alarm activations and property crimes since Harry and Meghan moved in to their Montecito home with one-year-old son Archie.

In July, officers were called four times, with one call listed as a phone request, and others labelled “alarm activations”, all occurring in the early hours, according to data obtained under freedom of information laws by the PA Media news agency. There was a further alarm call in November, listed as “Misc Priority Incdnt”.

© Photograph: Harpo Productions/Reuters
Meghan and Harry revealed during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that their personal protection officers had been removed when they stepped back from royal duties.

At 4.13pm on Christmas Eve last year, sheriff’s deputies were called 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 crime”. Nickolas Brooks, 37, was booked in to jail on a misdemeanour trespassing charge and later released.

The most recent call was at 2.21am on 16 February, listed as an alarm activation.

Neither representatives of the Sussexes, or the sheriff’s department, would comment.

The couple’s security arrangements hit the headlines following their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March.

Meghan, 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.

Harry said he never thought he would have his UK taxpayer-funded security detail removed upon deciding to step back from royal duties. “I was born into this position. I inherited the risk. So that was a shock to me,” he said.

The couple disclosed they had put in place “privately funded security arrangements” for their move to the US, after then president Donald Trump said his country would not pay for their protection.

Now no longer working members of the royal family, they are responsible for the management and cost of their security.