Jury service for 9 months???

[Aslockton]

The jurors on the Lucy Letby case had to sit for 9 moths hearing evidence then another month of deliberations.

Where would you find jurors who can sit for 9 months?

If these are retired people, what happens if they have a hospital appointment, family emergency or a holiday booked?

Has anyone served on a lengthy trial or work in the courts and know how choosing jurors for lengthy trials work?

There's already a few threads on this. Both on the first page of chat.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4875223-has-anyone-been-on-a-jury-of-a-very-long-trial

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4875462-lucy-letby-jury

If a juror has a genuine reason not to attend court then court won't sit that day. If they can't justify their absence they will be held in contempt of court, prosecuted and convicted.

Being on a jury is effectively a fulltime job. If a trial lasts less than 10 days then most decent employers will let you have it as paid leave but this wouldn't be expected for longer trials - jurors in longer trials can claim £129.90 per day for loss of earnings which would be £33,776 per year and I think that's not "taxable" as you claim for your net (post-tax) loss so anyone whose normal job pays up to £45k ish wouldn't be out of pocket. That would mean the vast majority of employed jurors would be fine - about 11% of working asults pay higher rate income tax which kicks in at a similar level.

It's really important that jury service is done by ordinary people. It's a fundamental pillar of living in a free democracy that these important decisions are made by representatives of the general public, rather than there being an elite class of decision-makers.

There were definitely days when the court didn’t sit due to a juror being sick/unavailable. I also think I read they had more than 12 jurors, so one or two spares who sat through the whole thing. One of the main 12 did drop out for some reason and was replaced by a spare.

I recognise the importance, but if we had that drop in income we could lose our home as we couldn't afford to pay the mortgage and bills.

@JaukiVexnoydi Do you know what happens in that case? Do employers have to keep your job for you?

@WaitingfortheTardis they absolutely do.

I think for a long case such as this there is some discretion on jury selection.

So they’d pick the housewife who’s mother can provide childcare, the unemployed person, the retired person, the person who works for a company where they will have their salary made up, the person on minimum wage who actually getting £129 a day is ok.

not the self employed builder who would lose his house. I’m not saying it’s always the case and certainly not for a short trial of a week or two but for longer trials nobody wants to see someone lose their home.

@JaukiVexnoydi "It's a fundamental pillar of living in a free democracy" many countries would disagree with you. Many feel that asking people with no legal experience to interpret the law is a bad idea.

Many feel that asking people with no legal experience to interpret the law is a bad idea.

When I did jury service, the judge made it very clear we weren't interpreting the law. We were listening to the evidence.

It is illegal for an employer not to grant leave for jury service, and illegal to dismiss someone due to jury service.

For someone to be normally earning so much that a drop to £129.90 per day represents a serious and hardship-inducing drop in income they would have to be in a pretty high-powered, well paid and senior job. (I am assuming that no one who is that well paid is so foolhardy as to be making financial commitments such that absolute essentials take up more than 75% of their income). For most employers, someone who is worth paying that much is worth supporting and helping and retaining - you don't pay salaries of that level for people who are easily replaceable. In most cases I would expect employers of such special individuals to limit the loss of earnings to something not too far from the maximum £129.90 per day (net) that is claimable and so continue to pay a proportion of salary (potentially expecting the employee to do what work they can - court hours are generally significantly shorter than normal office hours after all).

Jury service is a duty everyone ought to do, and should realise how important it is and how right and proper it is that it's done by people like them, but the vast majority of trials are much much shorter and these long ones are rare - I am not familiar enough with the exact procedures to go into more specifics but I think people worry far too much about the outlying very low probability extremes. If you are called for jury service and are one of the rare people who genuinely couldn't cope with the fallout of a longer trial then it's really not worth panicking about as in the vast majority of cases it will be less than 2 weeks anyway, and you aren't assigned to a specific trial until you show up so you can tell the court on the day that you would be put into hardship if assigned to a longer trial, and there will be a number of alternative shorter trials you can be assigned to.

Many feel that asking people with no legal experience to interpret the law is a bad idea

Since when is "interpreting the law" part of a Juror's remit? They have one purpose - listen to the evidence and decide if there is reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt = not guilty. No doubt = guilty. In Englad at least.

I found it quite scary how ignorant many of my fellow jurors were when I did jury service. Literally comments like “he looks like a nasty piece of work so I think he is guilty” rather than understanding that evidence is actually required to find someone guilty.

The jurors on the McLibel case did it for 2.5 years years.

This one was 2 years 'We spent almost two years sitting on a jury' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40946653

There was a train inquiry that took 18 months.

I don’t understand the cost being maxed at £129 a day. If your living in an expensive area and paying £150 a day childcare for 2, and usually a high earner, your stuffed. You can just reduce mortgage or stop childcare or stop paying for car etc.

Your earnings absolutely dictate your spending. Someone who usually takes £800 a day, isn’t a problem having a £2500 mortgage and £2000 childcare bill. Plus high utility bills if larger house etc.. are people expecting to fire nanny or loose nursery place as it’s unaffordable or loose house as they should have rented a bed sit to allow for jury service? Or the the private insurance monthly not longer allowed if on jury..

I'm a contractor and actually have jury service cover but it's a fairly low limit and would only cover a few weeks of earnings.

We wouldn't be in lose your house territory but it would have a serious impact on our finances. A 9 month trial would cost me a huge amount in lost earnings.

When I did jury service there was a long trial on the list but they asked for volunteers for it. They didn’t expect anyone to do it who couldn’t. Quite a few did volunteer, no idea if they got enough but certainly the rest of us were not forced to do it.

I was just about to post exactly the same thing!

I would lose my business that I've spent a decade building up. My work depends on regular interaction with the same clients and they would go elsewhere after a month I'd say. It would be devastating. And that's before my court associated PTSD. I'm pretty sure I'd be excused.

For the self-employed and those who run small businesses It's not just a matter of income for the duration of the trial, the problem is also losing clients. If regular clients have to find an alternative, there,'s no guarantee they'll come back to you. And what about contracts you've undertaken to fulfil?

If it's just a few weeks, and you can keep your business going in the hours you're not on jury duty, you might manage - though you might also struggle to keep awake in the courtroom.

It takes a special person to be on the jury in these types of cases, I sincerely thank them all, I can hardly watch the news, I keep breaking down. I certainly wouldn’t be any good on the jury. I hope they get counselling if needed.

When I did jury service there was a case coming up which was clearly going to take a longer time than the 2 weeks. They asked if anyone in my group would be willing to swap and come back for the longer trial, which a couple of (retired) people did.

I did jury service at the old Bailey & got called for a trial that lasted 7 months. Before the trial all jurors (quite a lot of us) went in front of the judge & were given a chance to say if we could/couldn’t commit to that length of time.
At the time my Dd was 7 months old & I had no regular childcare (my parents could do a short stint but both I & they had holidays booked) I was excused.
From memory a self employed man & a person with an upcoming medical procedure were also excused.
Everyone was very nice about it all & as long as you had a reason it was fine not to do it.

They specifically pick people who are available for a long case from a large pool of jurors.

Maybe there's an expectation that if you are a high earner you have some savings? Also, if a high earner you may be used to taking a summer break abroad which you cannot do on long Jury duty, so there's 5k+ saved, plus any differences in commuting costs etc.

There may also be an expectation that employers who pay their staff well above the max Jury pay are then expected to subsidise up to the normal salary (as parents are expected to subsidise student loans etc)?

Clearly this would be different for self employed people, but if you own your own company it's prudent to pay for insurances to cover loss of earnings in various circumstances.

I have just completed my second stint of jury service and, although now retired, I found the process absolutely exhausting this time. Also they now don’t even have the decency to offer a free coffee or tea despite you being sat around for hours on end on really uncomfortable chairs. 60p each for a tiny plastic cup from a machine. 😡

Also, to add insult to injury, I am having a real battle claiming my full expenses despite posting all receipts/tickets several weeks ago. I have only even paid half of what is due.

Very different experience from my first service in the 70’s when were treated really well. Hope to God I never have to do it again.

God knows how someone copes for 10 months with the way it is run these days.

Dh got an exemption due to his work. I got an exemption because Dd had a brain injury.