New Royal Baby’s Security Likely to Be a Redux
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Chris Jackson/Getty Images(LONDON) — Arranging security for Kate Middleton and the new royal baby should be a little easier the second time around.
That’s because the Duchess is expected to give birth at the same hospital where George was born, St. Mary’s in London.
Notices have already been posted outside the hospital, forbidding any parking 24 hours a day April 15-30. Middleton is expected to give birth during that time.
St. Mary’s is also where Middleton’s husband, Prince William, and his brother, Prince Harry, were born.
The hospital is well-equipped to handle the privacy and security needs of the royal family. Its private Lindo wing, where Middleton gave birth last time, offers birthing suites and doctors with experience caring for “complex pregnancies,” according to the hospital website.
Like last time, there’s not expected to be a “massive change in police presence” during and after the birth, as ABC News royal correspondent Victoria Arbiter outlined in 2013 before the birth of George. But police presence is expected to be “stepped up a notch.”
And just like before, Middleton will likely want to leave the hospital as soon as possible.
After a photo op outside the hospital — hopefully with young George in tow — the family will head immediately to Kensington Palace, where Arbiter said they have a “secure, fortified” place that “gives them privacy and security without added worries.”
But their stay at Kensington is likely to be a brief couple days, royal commentator Victoria Murphy told ABC News recently.
“After that the intention is for them to leave and to go to their country home of Anmer Hall,” Murphy said of their estate in Norfolk, England. “And really that is where they consider to be their home now, where they feel most comfortable and where they will spend the next few weeks.”
Roya Nikkhah, a royal family commentator and writer, explained that the country home has everything the family of four needs in one secure place.
“There’s a huge amount of private space there,” Nikkhah told ABC News recently. “There’s an enormous garden. There’s tennis, there’s swimming but all in one place. They don’t have to get protection officers to take them from one bit to the other as they do in London.”
Added Nikkhah, “It’s a kind of completely enclosed childhood for Prince George and his new brother or sister that’s about to arrive. And I think that’s what William and Kate, particularly William, wants for his children. He wants to have that incredibly normal life that’s completely private, that’s away from the spotlight.”
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