Bloody jury service

[fussychica]

In all my years at work, where I would have been paid by my employer, I was never called for jury service. I'm now retired and I've been called right in the middle of the summer. Although I don't mind doing the actual thing getting there will be a nightmare, (I dont drive) and the subsistance doesnt even cover 2 drinks let alone lunch. I dont have an actual holiday booked but had quite a few plans for this part of the summer. I know its my civic duty but Im a bit pissed off about it as if you couldnt tell

It shocks me that you don't get recompensed for lost earning - 10 weeks unpaid would cripple my family massively.

It shocks me that you don't get recompensed for lost earning - 10 weeks unpaid would cripple my family massively.

So surely you insure against it then? Just like you insure against your house burning down or any other financially ruinous possibility.

I appear to be in a minority but I loved jury duty, found it very interesting and hope to get called again at some point.

I do sympathise with you Op in the sense that you got called when you have just retired (and probably some of the reason why I liked it was because I got out of a mundane job for 2 weeks but got paid) but my personal opinion is that people should only defer if they have to not just because they didn't fancy doing it at that particular time - and by your own admission you have no plans for that period yet, so maybe the best thing would be to get it over and done with otherwise you'll spend the next year worrying when they'll next get in touch - and that could well be a less convenient time.

Those talking about insurance... "£12 a year and it pays up to £1000 month".
Well what if you earn £1000 a day + though? I don't think it would be sensible to pay massive insurance over a 40 year career just in case you get called up, and also even if I had insurance clients would simply disappear to other firms and there would be no business left if I disappeared for 8 weeks (so you'd need compensation of £1m + for total loss of a business) and their businesses and court actions would be in chaos. I suppose some kind of temp might be possible but that's quite difficult in the middle of litigation etc.

I like the suggestion on the thread that you could choose when you did it though although I might work full time until I die like most people in our family so even once I am over 70 and at state retirement age I won't have time although by then I might actually have some savings.

They used to exclude lawyers for good reason but changed the policy. Even so it's still a bit controversial we can serve.

I'd love to do jury service. My sister was called and was actually in the pool for the Ian Watkins trial but was excused - she was shitting herself about having to sit through the evidence on that one.

Purely anecdotal as I've only been on jury service the once, but when they were selecting the jury the defence (I think) objected to police officers, doctors and some other professionals. I think they'd rather have a lay person rather than someone with too much knowledge. That was the impression I got anyway.
When they select they do ask questions and to speak to the judge if any apply in order to rule out prejudices. On mine the judge said to speak to him if you were in certain professions, which later turned out to be related to the trial evidence.
I'm guessing a lawyer would probably make it as far as the selection pool but perhaps not onto the jury itself?

I work in the CJS with the crown court (police witness care officer) and the courts in my area are a shambles for everyone, the system is not fit for the modern world.

However, i do understand why people don't want to do it. Loss of earnings is a real thing for most people, difficulty travelling or arranging childcare, medical issues, a whole myriad of things. Let alone on some cases having to hear in great detail the horrific things that have happened to people, including sexual abuse and violence against children. I felt very sorry for the jurors on a recent horrific child familial sex abuse case i had which lasted 6 weeks. I cannot imagine any of them will ever forget what they saw and heard

Don't know if all home insurance is the same - thank you to whoever pointed this out though. Just checked mine, and it covers my lost earnings. I work 3 days per week part time. If I had jury service in the school holidays, the 3 day salary would be far less than the cost of childcare plus travel to our local crown court either by train or parking near there (anything reimbursed by the court is deducted from what the insurance pays). So it would help, but not totally alleviate the cost. If I didn't work, insurance would cover nothing so childcare would all be out of pocket. If I am ever called I will just have to suck it up and say sorry kids no dancing next term or no holiday next year (depending how long I was off for) but the system is flawed in that people have to effectively pay to perform their public duty.

forgot to say, the insurance says you have to "prove your loss" so presumably you don't get paid twice if your employer pays you whilst on service.

I'd love to do it, but I'm disqualified.

I do understand all the disruption it causes for other people though. But that is my experience of the whole criminal justice system - still very antiquated.

TTWK, when DH was called and spent 9 bloody weeks doing it, we had just graduated and bought a house. We were already just managing due to massive student debt. He was on a temp contract. It meant 9wks of just my salary. It was awful and we nearly lost the house. How many new graduates are on temp contracts these days? And how many do you think factor in jury insurance?

My DH, DB, dad & Mil have all done Jury service- & they all enjoyed the bit when they actually got down to listening to evidence etc. No one liked the hanging around.
My dad particularly liked being put up in a hotel when the jury retired to consider their verdict.None of their cases involved sex abuse or violence though.
My DH is self employed & it was a pain & we lost out financially but not by a huge amount thank goodness.
I would not want to serve as a juror & I have my own personal reasons for that which can't be disclosed here.

There was virtually no hanging around either time I did it, I think I must have been very lucky. Just the first morning while they sorted out who was going on which trial, then we were off. I have to say that, first time anyway, it was one of the most interesting things I've ever done in my life. Second time round we got chatting after we had finished deliberating and found over half of us were on our second stint of service, which surprised me, I assumed that was fairly rare. Most were a lot further apart than mine though, which were about 5 years apart. I wouldn't want to do it again now though.

I was called and really wanted to do it but being self employed it would have cost me thousands and if the trial went on much longer than a week the chances were my business would fold.
I dont want to say on here what I did but it didn't happen!!!

Information from Google suggests it's capped at £1k per month. Which is gigantically less than I would lose - it wouldn't even cover our mortgage. I will phone my insurers tomorrow to see what ther cap is though and enquire whether I can get suitable cover. I would happily pay a couple of hundred pounds a year for peace of mind because this is genuinely something that concerns me on a regular basis (whenever I hear about someone being called for jury service basically). It's possible that my employers could get me an exemption on the basis that I'm indispensable - but that sort of exemption might not be available. And since my employers are based in Brussels I doubt they would care about my UK civic duty.

You can generally only get a deferral on work grounds, not an exemption. But your employers have to give you time off by law, assuming all other UK legislation applies to your job. They just don't have to pay you.

For those in paid employment it's definitely worth checking your company policy, when I first did it I worked for a foreign multinational who always did the legal minimum with regards to maternity pay etc, but they paid full pay minus what you could claim for jury service. Self employment is a big problem, we dread DH getting called for that reason.

Why don't they use people in benifits to do it as they do not work. I think it would make sense

But you can have a good mix on people even if they are on benifits and not working. I myself am on benifits but have a hons degree and PHD just bad luck that certain things happened when they did.

I quite enjoyed it.

But I did do lots of hanging around- which is very boring!

I've done it twice and really enjoyed it. My experience is that jurors are reluctant to find anyone guilty. I am surprised anyone gets a conviction

Even the bloke that got caught red handed with a machete " looked like a nice boy" according to one of the jurors I was with!

I loved jury service. My employer made me write to the court asking to be dispensed, but it's not so easy these days and fortunately they refused! I loved every day of it, being taken out of my work routine, meeting the other jurors, hearing the case, seeing how the system works. I was heavily pregnant at the time and appreciated being able to sit down and take it easy (physically at least).
I was given a food and travel allowance and at the end of it more than broke even.
One self employed juror (ran his own business) had been given 2 dispensations and this time the judge told him in no uncertain terms he was not getting out of it. He was die to go on a business trip to the US which would have netted him a good income. The judge warned him he'd issue an arrest warrant just in case he considered going anyway.
You might be surprised at how much you enjoy it.

Never called for duty service but they decided to call me up when my premature twins were 8 weeks old! I managed to get it deferred thankfully.