AceShowbiz - Prince Harry believes he and his wife were "forced" to leave Britain. The 39-year-old royal has been fighting the U.K. government at London's High Court over its decision to scale back his security when he is in Britain, and has now claimed he and his two children cannot "feel at home" in the U.K. if it is "not possible to keep them safe."

Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, 42, announced in 2020 they were stepping down as senior working royals before they decided to move to America as part of their so-called "Megxit" deal.

At a hearing in London on Thursday, December 7, the Duke of Sussex's barrister Shaheed Fatima KC said Harry did not accept it was a "choice" for him to have stopped being a "full-time working member of the royal family."

The lawyer read out an excerpt from a statement by Harry in which he said, "It was with great sadness for both of us that my wife and I felt forced to step back from this role and leave the country in 2020."

"The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the U.S. That cannot happen if it's not possible to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil," he added. "I cannot put my wife in danger like that and, given my experiences in life, I am reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm's way too."

Since the summer of 2020, Harry and Meghan have lived in LA, where they are raising their son Archie, four, and two-year-old daughter Lilibet. Harry now faces a wait for a judge's ruling on his legal action against the Home Office after a two-and-half-day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice concluded on Thursday.