LONDON  — Lawyers for Prince Harry told a court hearing on Friday that the British royal is unwilling to bring his children to his homeland because it is not safe.

Harry has launched a legal challenge to the U.K. government’s refusal to let him personally pay for police protection when he comes to Britain.

His legal team says Harry wants to bring his children — Archie, who is almost 3, and 8-month-old Lilibet — to visit his home country from the U.S. but that is too risky without police protection.

Senior members of Britain’s royal family are given taxpayer-funded police protection, but Harry lost that when he and his wife Meghan stepped down as working royals and moved to the United States in 2020. The couple said their decision was due to what they described as unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.

Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, wants to be able to pay for the protection, saying his private security team in the U.S. doesn’t have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to U.K. intelligence information.

The British government has said it is inappropriate to comment on legal proceedings.

During a hearing at the High Court in London, Harry’s lawyer Shaheed Fatima said the duke “does not feel safe when he is in the U.K. given the security arrangements applied to him.”

“It goes without saying that he does want to come back to see family and friends and to continue to support the charities that are so close to his heart,” she said. “Most of all, this is and always will be, his home.”

Harry, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, did not attend Friday’s preliminary hearing, which considered requests by both sides in the case for some parts of court documents to be kept private.