To ask what happens if you can't afford to do jury service?

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Let me start off by saying that I always thought I'd like to do jury service one day.

Now I've discovered that not only do my employers not pay you when you're on jury service, the rates courts pay you for loss of earnings are paltry - the sum I'd get for the first 10 days would be less than half what I'd actually lose, and rates from day 11 are still less than my wages so I couldn't actually afford to do it www.gov.uk/jury-service/what-you-can-claim

Can you refuse to do jury service on the grounds that you can't afford the loss of earnings? I'm single and have rent to pay, for context.

As a single parent (and childminder to another two girls), I wonder if I would have to do it?

I was called up about 15 years since, did a two week stint, it was very interesting.

My employer covered my salary, but the travel allowance no way covered the cost of public transport or daily parking and the meal allowance wasn't adequate for a few cups of tea and a sandwich in the dining area of the court.

I'd love to do it again.

The clerks to the court were going through the telephone directory and choosing people from that, they were sat in the recreation area and it was clearly visible how they were choosing.

I got called up once a few years ago but had to defer, firstly as I was the main income provider so we would have become homeless if a case lasted more than two weeks (dh was a student) and also because I nannied to two families, one who needed specialist care that I'd been trained to provide so they couldn't just get anybody else in and the other family was a self employed mother and a nurse father, so either one not working wasn't an option. Jury service people were fine with either of those explanations and I was excused (not certain what the exact wording used was but I want called back again a year later!)

My mum was called three times whilst she was childminding and refused each time because she couldn't just close up shop for an undetermined amount of time. I now childmind and would have the same issue.

They really need to overhaul it though. I'd be more than happy to do it but we just cannot afford for me to basically lose my [very small] business in order to do so! Nor would I be able to find a childminder for such a short amount of time knowing that I'm the only one in my area willing to provide short term contracts for under 5s! And dh couldn't afford to either as he's now the primary earner.

In peacetime jury service and paying taxes are the two major obligations of a citizen. You expect to be out of pocket after paying taxes; why not after jury service?

Mine was deferred as I was doing A level mocks. They actually sent me the letter before I turned 18, asking me to serve soon after my birthday.

I still haven't been contacted about the deferred jury service, and it's been almost 20 years!

My cousin was called up for it. However this was in the middle of her final uni exams. She asked for a deferral but they denied her request even though the trial start date was the date of her economics exam, which could not be changed. She then remembered that myself and my dad both work in the prison service and because of family ties she may be an unbiased jury member. So she got out of it that way (and passed her exams with flying colours).
I don’t know if many people are aware but those families with connections to the prison service through work are exempt. So because my dad is a prison officer, my husband, brother, mother, aunts, uncles and grandparents are exempt.
Because I worked there my husband, brother, mother, father, cousins and inlaws (up to and including my husbands grandparents) are also exempt along with any children I have and their father(s).

The clerks to the court were going through the telephone directory and choosing people from that, they were sat in the recreation area and it was clearly visible how they were choosing

Is this really how they choose? I don't have a landline - so, I'll never get selected?!

The problem with deferring and refusing is that most people will have a vital (to them) reason for not doing it. If it's not childcare then it's being self employed and if it's not that then it's having a job which nobody else could cover in your absence and if it's not that then it's being out of pocket and if it's not that then it's being disabled. And so on. None of those reasons are more important than any of the others but everyone thinks the one that applies to them is.

Personally, I think SAHMs and Home Educators would be ideal candidates - especially if the court would do something sensible like provide a creche. There'd be almost no cost incurred that way and they wouldn't be inconveniencing anyone other than their own children.

But then I don't have children so I would think that. I'm a teacher and I'd say it would be 'impossible' for me to do it if it fell during exam time or school show time or residential trip time or activity week time - etc. Me doing would inconvenience at lot more children so, to me, it would be really important that I didn't do it. But that's only my reasoning. People with other reasons should disagree.

Most people can't easily take 2 weeks to 6 months out of their lives without it causing them some major problems. Our lives aren't set up to have free time during the day. But someone's got to do it. It's hard.

If it wasn't that I'd feel so guilty about not being at work I would actually love to do it - especially a really complex murder trial! But I've never even been called.

Ethyl When i was growing up i often heard the phrase "the world doesnt owe you a living"

So why on earth to people owe the world a civic duty that risks them becoming homeless. Its a bit more than just going a bit short for a few weeks in a lot of cases.

I got called up just before Christmas; being self employed I knew I'd lose a lot of earnings, so I figured that's the best time to do it as there wouldn't be long trials so I didn't try to defer. Despite being on two trials in the 8 days there were several afternoons off, a full day off and a lot of periods of a few hours off. I chose not to work very much, but you can take in a laptop for the hours spent hanging about and work some days (of course then you can't bill the Jury Service for those days because you've worked too, but anyway they don't pay much so it's better to work...). It was interesting to follow the process and fulfilling to do; while one of the trials had some difficult content it felt important to be there to help identify the truth. I really liked both my jury teams and we had some good chats while waiting around; one of the jurors stayed in touch as we worked in the same industry, we all had lunches together and it was interesting to have general chats with such a broad mix of people at once. I also read two novels, wrote all my Christmas cards, got all my Christmas shopping done online, caught up on my email, caught up on my accounts and did about 2.5 days of paid work. Obviously not all jobs can be done flexibly or money might be so tight that you really can't manage a small drop, and there are some trials that would be just awful, but if you can make it work then I'd recommend it. Most people only have to do it the once and it's an experience.

I agree that it could be funded better to cover people's real expenses, but obviously with a sensible cap e.g. £150 instead of £65/day, not £1k/day. It would also be easy to make it much more efficient for jurors if a little effort were made in lining up trials better and dealing with more procedural matters before calling a jury; I suspect the jury's time is less valued by the court process because they're cheaper than the judges and barristers.

As an aside more women jurors would not change the outcome of rape trials. The evidence allowed to be presented and the evidence collected or not is more important, but of even more importance is the attitude of the legal profession and police surrounding these cases and the language used.

The good girl, bad woman, attire, attitude to women drinking /clubbing/breathing, friend rape vs stranger rape, all these have far more impact on a successful prosecution for rape than the no of women sitting on a jury.

I read somewhere that for rape trials, they ask if any jurors have experienced rape or sexual assault or sexual harassment -and if so, you can't serve on that trial. That's going to reduce the number of women jurors for such cases a lot.

I read somewhere that for rape trials, they ask if any jurors have experienced rape or sexual assault or sexual harassment -and if so, you can't serve on that trial.

Is that in the UK ? I know the US love stacking juries, but hoped it wasn't the case here ....

I was on a rape trial, they didn't ask that

Are there actually any women out there who have never been sexually harrassed or assaulted?

Obviously most of us won't have been raped or seriously sexually assaulted, but sadly, most women will have been sexually assaulted at sometime in their lives, probably several times, if you include the accepted definition of being felt up, arse slapped and that sort of thing.

If you have your wits about you, it can be quite easy to get excused.

When I did jury service we were pre-warned (very short notice mind) about a trial that was expected to last 6 weeks, that everyone dreaded being called for. I was part of the large pool selected to be whittled down to 12 and got excused because I had a letter from my employer saying it would cause extreme difficulties for my employer for me to be away from work for 6 weeks as we already had severe staff shortages, the Judge grudgingly accepted this.

But the trial involved crimes committed by a group of people who ran a fairly prominent restaurant in a local town and the first question was that anyone who had eaten at that particular restaurant could not serve, which caused several people to drop out. Whether or not they had actually eaten at that restaurant was, of course, impossible to prove.

It was many years ago, but DM was called to serve at the Old Bailey. Legal experts can guess the era from the fact that each defendant was allowed to challenge up to 3 jurors without cause.

The first trial - a rape - they allocated to my DM, the defence barristers were using those challenges to remove women and people of the same ethnicity as the (3 ?) defendants. My DM was immediately challenged, and was followed by another lady. For some reason the defence barristers were a little tardy, and her hand touched the book. The judge refused to accept the challenge and she was sworn in.

(My DM went on to serve on an interesting theft case. Despite every single juror feeling incredibly sorry for the defendant, they voted guilty).

I would genuinely like to do it.

The only time I have been called, I completed the form about pre-existing commitments which included my wedding and honeymoon and me moving across the country to start a new graduate trainee job. For some reason they never came back to me with an actual court date.

I am guessing length of time spent on a case must depend on where you live and local court, probably more likely to get a big long case at one of the bigger city courts or Old Bailey than my fairly small town one that probably has had about 2 big cases in its time,

People on this thread are making a real fuss.

You are asked if you cannot commit to a potentially long case (longer than two weeks). Likewise you have the opportunity to opt out of a distressing case.

Students can defer in term time and go in the holidays (as ds is doing right now). When anyone receives a summons for jury service, you can offer alternative dates if you cannot make the dates given.

Jury service can be very interesting (I found it so as it did all my fellow jurors). Some people are such miseries, always complaining and belligerently moaning about having to do anything out of their comfort zone.

Moaning about needing to pay the mortgage. What killjoys.

I honestly dread the thought that I may one day be called up. I'm a sahm but have three kids in school. Because we're rural there aren't any emergency childcare providers and breakfast club begins at 8:30am. We do have childminders near (no paid nurseries) but they're all booked up so if I did get called up, I would have to leave before 8am to get to the court in time and that would mean leaving my 11 year old high schooler to get her 8yo DSis and 6yo Dbro to school. There is no after school club though. They would have to be latchkey kids for the duration and obviously that's not going to happen.

DH can't take holidays when he wants because like teachers, his working hours and holidays are set. So unless I want to take my kids out of school and transport us all to the big town with the courts and where childcare is available in time for court each day, I have no idea what I would do.
The fact that I'm 36 and have never been called, and my mother of 59 hasn't either, having something in place like a specific insurance policy or childcare on retainer on the off chance it could happen is crazy.

It would be good if there were childcare options run by the courts though. It would remove the need to pay the jurors childcare (if they could even find any) and would ensure that sahp's could do their civic duty. Like agency childminders dispatched to where was needed.

Now this is just what I was going on about.

You have three dcs, not tiny children. They are at school. Don't tell me you couldn't ask someone to look after them for an hour or so until court finishes (not very late most days). What a defeatist.

11-year-old at secondary school a latchkey kid?

You have three dcs, not tiny children. They are at school. Don't tell me you couldn't ask someone to look after them for an hour or so until court finishes (not very late most days). What a defeatist.

I can’t think of anyone who would want to look after someone else’s 3 children every evening for 2 weeks for what would probably be about 2 hours, which it would be by the time the parent got home.

Most of the people I know work and have childminders or grandparents watching their children. None of whom I could or would ask. And jury service is until 4:30pm round these parts. That would mean finding someone to watch my 3dc for 2 and a half hours a day every day for a fortnight or much, much longer. You can't claim expenses for favours from friends so you can't pay them for the huge inconvenience of your cheeky fuckery needing them to be an unpaid childminder. Yes you can't help it but you'd be up in MN court branded a CF before the week was out.

Why should other people look after people’s kids because there is not an adequate system in place or proper payment

In peacetime jury service and paying taxes are the two major obligations of a citizen. You expect to be out of pocket after paying taxes; why not after jury service

It's a bit different! Firstly, you have ££ left after you've paid taxes and you know how much you have to pay. If you lose your income during jury service you may have very little left. It's 2 weeks but you may have a much longer stint. Plus you get something for your taxes.

And secondly, I don't believe in citizen obligations. We have hopefully moved way beyond the days when we were cannon fodder for the politicians to send into war.