Jury service expenses are ridiculous

@LadyBlakeneysHanky there is a section on the claim form to say whether you would be able to return to work if you only did a half day at court. If your employer ticks that you wouldn’t be able to return for a half day, eg due to travel time or like the example you gave of the builder, then they will still pay a full day even when you have only done half.

The most ridiculous part of my experience was the travel expenses. I was living at my parent's place at the time, very rural (think two busses per day) and didn't drive. A taxi to court was about 20 quid, and I could get a bus home for around a fiver.

I enquired about claiming for this on the first day and they absolutely refused to pay for a taxi, insisting they could only pay for a bus or train. I showed them the bus timetable, and explained that I would be turning up at around 12 noon each day on the first bus if that was the case. I was told this was not acceptable, and the judge could take action against me for disrupting the trial.

I told them that the only way I'd be able to make the journey on public transport was by staying at my partner's place (around two hours away) and getting a train there and back each day. The train was about £46 per day for a return ticket. They told me this was fine, they would happily reimburse me for the train.

I did some quick math and told her how much more expensive the train would be.

"It doesn't matter, we don't pay for taxis, they're too expensive."

My head was absolutely fried by this point so I dropped it. I ended up buying a train ticket for every day of my service, keeping the receipt and refunding it. Not proud of it, but as my employer didn't pay me for the two weeks I served it was costing me hundreds of pounds a day to be there. Felt like a little win.

You can defer. When I phoned them about it it basically said that everyone can defer the first time if they have an excuse. They ask you for suitable dates you can do in the next year. I was given the first date on my list. I was then excused as they had enough people.

I've been called up 4 times and sat on a jury twice.

yoh get to see how inefficient the justice system runs.

but, depending on the case, it's not pleasant. I'm done, as far as I'm concerned. I will do my very best to get out of any future summons.

Hardly lucky.

serving on a jury should not cause financial hardship. People just would rather risk getting into trouble themselves rather than do jury duty if there was no compensation for the expenses they lost. The expenses, as they currently are, as demonstrated on this thread are a joke and a massive barrier to people being able to do jury duty.

and it really woukd affect the outcome of trials - as people would base their decision on how annoyed they were to be there.

I've done it three times,.and been called a fourth but I declined as it was too early (supposed to be a two year gap/.I loved it and am waiting for magistrates position to open up
I actually thought the expenses were generous and made money but I have insurance that covers my wage if I am unable to work due to sickness injury or other reason,.being self employed I think it's important to protect m
y earnings

That’s a very good point, I hadn’t thought of it that way!

Don't be under the illusion that its a nice environment to 'sit around reading a book and people watching'

There's not enough seats. There will be a TV blasting trash daytime TV. There will be people watching shit on their phones without headphones. The room will likely be too hot or too cold. There will be people constantly talking loudly and coming and going. The toilets will be horrible. You will have the opportunity to pay over the odds for poor quality refreshments. You will mix with a lot of people expressing views you disagree with. You will have to queue up and be searched every time you enter the building.

If you want to recreate the experience I suggest you go and sit in A&E on a Saturday night or in a regional airport on the first day of the school holidays.

Can’t work out from your post what you actually think. You’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t an upsetting case but also you’ve seen that show and concluded it’s ’terrifying’ but you’d love to do it? I’m baffled!

That’s even worse! If you are say a self employed builder and have to do 4 hours in a given day at jury service, that day is lost to you. It’s not like you will be getting work for the remaining 4 hours. But (during the first 10 days) all you will get will be £32.47! Despite losing an entire day’s work and income!

It’s revolting and contemptuous of both self employed (who are being required to subsidise the court system) and the whole idea of jury service, in that clearly it excludes certain demographics. (The conspiracy minded might even wonder if that’s intentional.)

I believe in the jury system - but if we are to retain it, it needs fundamental reform including proper compensation for loss of earnings based on PAYE and tax returns.

Exactly. Many countries don’t have juries at all, some have them for certain types of case only. I don’t know about remuneration elsewhere but I’d guess our shitty and underfunded criminal legal system is uniquely bad at enabling citizens to perform this particular duty.

Hard agree. After years of interactions with Barristers, Solicitors and Judges (as an innocent party) they drag the fucker out as long as they can. Wouldn't run if their arse was on fire if they could get a fiver for strolling.

Haha! That made me laugh. Aye, the people who want to do it, like Politicians, are precisely the ones who shouldn't.

It does. It has with me. They do let you defer more than once in some cases, because obviously they have to!

I’d really like to do it. I’d get full pay for JS and would love to sit around for hours just reading a book, or even just people watching, waiting to be called. So long as it wasn’t CSA or any other form of child abuse. I don’t think I could cope with that very well.

I watched that programme a couple of years ago where a real life old case was picked, there was Jury A and Jury B and they re-enacted the trial while filming the juries reaching their conclusions. Bloody terrifying.

Lots of people live on the breadline and can’t afford any loss of earnings.

I did notice, however, part of what you’d copied and pasted saying that loss of earnings could be claimed through court. I really hope that’s correct in all cases and processed quickly.

I was selected once, deferred once, and excused the third time. If it’s a huge case they do warn you in the room before selection, so you can tell the judge if there’s a problem (but be aware you have to tell everyone in the room, there’s no privacy). One poor woman had no carer for her parent and they wouldn’t let her off. She was sobbing so much.
I was excused - running a small company there was no way I could disappear with no contact for 3+ months. It would have crippled the company and sent us under. Thankfully they’d called in about 50 of us for that trial so a lot of us were let go or excused. One poor fella had been called 5 times and had to turn up to be let go - he was a copper! Whatever his position was, he wasn’t allowed to be on a jury but he kept getting called! The system is so stupid.
I served about 15 years ago and the cafe expenses didn’t even cover a sandwich back then.

I think you must be able to defer more than once for medical reasons. At least, I have - but I’m in Scotland so it may be different in England.

I got one when my kids were your age and just responded saying I had no childcare for my baby and toddler and they removed me from it really easily

I really wares to do jury service (kids are older). Work refused to release me as a front line worker booooo

Out if interest, did you ask to be excused and were refused, or did you not ask? It would be awful if people could not be excused on grounds of genuine financial need.

🤣 I really don’t think 3 judges are going to save money versus 1 judge and 12 essentially volunteered lay people

do you know what judges earn, do you know what they expense for?

you might like to read Lady Hales autobiograpghy , which while interesting, made me actually furious on her ignorant entitlement of a luxury lifestyle at public expense, down to choosing artwork for her new offices at £100ks and lacking any insight as to how that looks to normal folks like me,

I’d like to see maths that it’d be cheaper. I’d like to see evidence it’d not be massively affected by unconscious bias. I certainly have no hope at all it’d make the process quicker, having been on receiving end of judge and barristers lack of urgency, slow motion resolution of problems etc.

They couldn’t do this because it could lead to bias. Examples that come to mind:

1. If people with a particular social/political agenda volunteered on the basis that it was an ‘opportunity’ to have impact with those views. Obviously you have to declare certain things before a trial starts but people could hide those things if they had an agenda.
2. Volunteers would skew towards those with more free time and therefore not be representative of the population. For example, the average age of juries might go up if retired people were over- represented among volunteers.
3. Volunteers might skew towards those with more resources who can afford to do it, e.g. certain professional roles where pay is covered. Self-employed people would likely volunteer less.

Juries need to be kept broadly representative- I completely agree that the expenses are insufficient though and I assume they would have to let someone defer on financial grounds. I have deferred on medical grounds based on likely timescales of ongoing treatment and unavailability for court. Initially they gave me a series of one-year deferrals, and more recently a longer one, presumably when they realised this would be an ongoing issue. After that deferral, I will be called again, however.

I don’t think that expecting the compensation to be at least the minimum wage for the whole period served (which most people will be paid more than) is unreasonable. And that should be for everyone, regardless of employment status.

Shouldn’t say this, but stating you can’t read well is probably going to get you off jury service. So much reading to do. You also need to be able to be fluent in English (see earlier post by someone else) to be able to hear, read and understand

jury on my case was selected twice, cos a guy from final selection in the court itself couldn’t read the oath even though he’d not said that on his summons return or at any point to court clerk. . Judge not well pleased..icily polite in telling guy to leave. More time wasted as with one juror dismissed, the whole jury gets dismissed, and then reselction starts again. Another 4 hours time wasted sitting around doing nowt for court to sort that out, and judge to have his leisurely lunch break in between.

so that’s my cunning plan, forgotten how to read, bad eyesight or something🤷‍♀️
once was enough.