Prince Harry claims he’s in the dark about the King’s cancer battle and say William doesn’t answer his calls or messages as they lift lid on deepening rift with his family

Insiders close to Prince Harry say his rift with the Royal Family is deepening – claiming he was left in the dark about his father King Charles’s cancer battle.

The Duke of Sussex’s calls to family members including his elder brother Prince William are also ignored, new reports today have suggested.

People magazine in the US quotes sources close to Harry as describing the ongoing ‘strained’ relationship with his father five years after the Duke and his wife Meghan Markle quit frontline royal duties and moved to California.

Palace insiders were also quoted on the estrangement since so-called ‘Megxit’ in 2020 – with the last face-to-face encounter between Charles and Harry being a 30-minute meeting in February last year.

Sources close to the Duke have told of his calls and letters to relatives being left unanswered.

And he is said to have only known his father the King was recently admitted to hospital on March 27 through media reports rather than being told directly.

Harry spent some time in the UK last week, attending a hearing at London’s High Court in his continuing battle over financing personal protection officers.

His legal team is arguing that he, Meghan and their two children are not safe to come to Britain.

Harry’s barrister claimed the prince, who is believed to have earned $120million from Netflix and Spotify and lives in a $15million Montecito mansion, must have his full taxpayer-funded bodyguards restored when in the UK because his ‘life is at stake’.

His lawyers said, ‘Al Qaeda called for the duke to be murdered’ – saying ‘his assassination would please the Muslim community’.

The prince says he was ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) stripped him of his top-level security in February 2020 after he moved out of the UK.

But Sir James Eadie KC, representing the Home Office, said it had discretion to strip his guaranteed full time police security without consulting the Risk Management Board quango.

People magazine suggested insiders close to the Duke feel Charles is intentionally staying distant – partly to avoid being embroiled in questions over security.

Now People has quoted royal author Sally Bedell Smith as saying the ongoing case ‘puts Harry in direct contact with the people who are carrying out the King’s orders’.

She added: ‘If his father was to say something even seemingly innocuous, it could end up landing in the middle of the court case.’

The magazine also quoted a source close to Harry as saying: ‘He feels very strongly this is something he must fight for.’

After last week’s hearing, Harry then left the UK secretly and without informing Buckingham Palace early last Thursday.

He was then understood to have landed at an unnamed airport in Poland ahead of a surprise visit to Ukraine.

He was given a police escort to and from the Polish border and former Ukrainian military personnel accompanied him to the Superhumans rehabilitation centre in Lviv where he met adults and children who have been injured since war broke out in 2022.

His visit came after William visited a Nato base in Ukraine’s neighbour Estonia last month.

The two brothers have been increasingly estranged following the decision by Harry and his wife Meghan to quit frontline royal duties and move to the US in January 2019.

Harry then published his critical memoir Spare in 2023, in which he described disputes between the siblings – including an allegation of a physical tussle.

The Duke of Sussex’s book saw him accuse William of pushing him into a dog bowl in a row over his wife Meghan.

It also claimed William teased Harry about his panic attacks and that King Charles put his own interests above his second son, while Harry also referred to taking cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.

MailOnline has contacted Kensington Palace for comment. Representatives for Prince Harry declined to comment.