Jury service expenses are ridiculous

It also makes the jury panel skewed because of who gets to defer.

If there is a case that is likely to go on for more than two weeks, you can exclude yourself if your employer doesn’t cover it/are self-employed. So public sector workers make up a bigger proportion of jurors, particularly on major cases.

DH was called twice and wrote to be excused because he was self employed and the loss of earnings would have been untenable.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. It cost us nearly £1000 for DH to do jury service last year. I could have cried! It's absolutely ridiculous.

Defer. I've been called at least 3 times but always had valid reasons to defer.

I wrongly assumed that all employees still get paid, but just looked it up and seen that it’s not a legal requirement, however many employers do pay. Pretty sure mine does.

I got called when I had a 1 year old, I was a sahm, my mum looked after my child. I’m glad that I went, the case was very interesting. I didn’t claim any expenses.

sorry yes, per day. Chamber of Commerce is something similar.

My DH has been called several times but managed to get excused. Between the minimal pay (he charges £100+ per hour) and the damage it would do to his client base in not being able to do the work scheduled then it could be hugely detrimental to his business.

I was called up for the second time when my son was eight months old and I was four months pregnant…I was excused

Its why I didn't do it when I was called a few years ago. DH also SE and we just could not afford to lose my income at that time, I probably would have lost the entire contract so an years income not just the few weeks
I managed to get out of it rather than defer, I would have loved to have done it though

It is ridiculous and is particularly unfair towards women.

When I did it, I was able to defer once but had to accept the next offer. Like you I was self employed, part time, with two kids in childcare.

I also live rurally, and my court was a 45 minutes drive with no public transport option.

I lost money doing it. It's so wrong.

I got excused when breastfeeding DS. He is now 9 and I haven't been called since!
I had done it twice while at at Uni though - thankfully short cases!!

I was called up when my son was about 9 months old (early 2024) and was excused (not deffered) due to being a stay at home mum without any childcare options available to me at that time or within the defferal period. (I wrote that unless I can bring my son I won't be able to attend and I don't think that's generally acceptable court etiquette)

I was a bit annoyed though really as I would have loved to have been asked before I had him, just awful timing! Hopefully I'll be called again when I'm no longer looking after a child!

They won't pay you any more than the basic rate, and I'm pretty sure that also covers lunches, parking etc!

Or anyone. A day's pay at NMW is more than the expenses, before higher wages or childcare costs.

People can be hundreds of pounds out of pocket if not more. Which will lead to holes in budgets that could well be unaffordable. Or at least, why should people do it without their costs being covered?

The expenses are ridiculous, fortunately my employer paid my salary as usual and I claimed for loss of earnings from the court and paid my employer what I was able to claim for. If I hadn't been able to do that then we would have been too stretched financially and I would have had to defer. I felt for the self employed people who were losing money while we were sitting around waiting to be called. That being said I did find the whole process fascinating and I sat on a really interesting case. I would definitely do it again.

Per day?

My day rate is more than ten times that, before childcare costs. Insane.

I had similar, had one infant at nursery (only booked in twice a week and nursery were happy to write a letter to say they didn’t have space to offer extra days -which was true) and two kids at primary school that I was primary carer for (drop off/pick up). I asked to defer but they excused me as I think it was obvious my situation wouldn’t change any time soon

That’s ridiculous. I don’t really see how self employed people can be expected to do it for that amount of compensation.

I would love to do JS and have never been called, I do think there should be a way of “opting out” for those who can’t afford the financial hit, it shouldn’t leave people so out of pocket!

I am self employed but because I was a member of the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) I was able to claim £250 from their insurance

I was called about 25 years ago, possibly a bit more. The DC were about 5 and 2. I wrote and said I'd happily do it providing the court could reimburse the cost of a temporary nanny, which with agency fees, tax and ni was about £800 pw. I was excused, possibly deferred. I have never heard from them again.

You really don't. The whole process is a shambles. As well as the woefully inadequate expenses for childcare, travel and loss of earnings, they'll keep you waiting around for hours, if not days with no information and you're just expected to put up with it.

Plus most of the population are too stupid to follow the instructions of the judge about basing a decision only on evidence presented and not what they found by googling or 'how you could tell they did it by looking at them'.