Jury duty expenses - crippling!

[Budapest99]

Hi there,
Ive been called up for Jury Duty which Im super excited about & really want to do it. However on completing the forms, Ive realised the court will pay a max of £65 per day for loss of earnings & childcare costs combined. My company will deduct the £65 per day from my salary leaving me no money for childcare. I have 2 kids at nursery costing £70 each Mon & Tues so I will need to add Wed to Fri as extra, costing me £840!!!! (£70 per kid for 6 extra days). I would have thought I would be paid the £65 reimbursable for loss of earnings & EXTRA money for childcare. I will need to try & excuse myself as I cannot afford it. What do you think? x

I 100% would not do this, youll probably be excused if you fill out an exception form.

If you don’t pay your employee, they can claim a loss of earnings allowance from the court.

entirely separate from expenses

Is it that you work and use childcare on Mondays and Tuesdays, but that on Wednesday to Friday you're at home with your kids so don't have childcare?

If that's the case, I'd ask to be excused on the basis of having no childcare for 3 days of the week.

I did jury service and they did pay £16 a day towards after school club (I ended up having to travel to a court location much further away than was told).

But I found the whole procedure of claiming money back so difficult, I was asked to send evidence that child had been to the child care and then evidence he was my child. It took a good month to receive anything back.

Surely if you don't work Wednesday to Friday, your employer can't deduct that from your wages? They can presumably only deduct it if for days you should be working and what you do on your days off is nothing to dry with them.

Unless people are properly compensated and supported to enable them to perform jury service it seems impossible to get juries which are truly representative of the population. Makes me question if a "jury of one's peers" is achievable in many cases. YANBU

Sat you can’t do it.

Excuse yourself
A couple of workmates did not even bother and nothing was said but I would not recommed that route

I've been called 5/6 times live in london - went oce that was over 30 years ago the other times said no as I despise public transport and the courts were the old Bailey and like in built-up areas - but its a good experience

Thanks all. Mon & Tues I work & pay for nursery. Wed to Thurs I look after my kids at home but I work from home those 3 days (just survey work on-line barely anything). So I will need to pay for a nursery Wed to Fri. I just spoke to the court helpline & its max of £65 per day irrespective of how many kids I have at nursery!

Shame as I really wanted to do it! :(

Any family/ partner who can provide childcare?

op it’s very clear

if your employer doesn’t pay you, you can apply for loss of earnings allowance which is entirely SEPARATE to expenses

well you can as i clarify 🤷‍♀️

I remember having this conversation with them. Asked to be excused - no. Asked if could claim any more - also no. Only option I was given was to re arrange for a date in next 12 months of my choosing, and my husband would be expected to take annual leave to care for our children.
So I postponed to latest possible date when both had started school so only had to pay for after school club. If you postpone, would that reduce your nursery costs?

I think it’s viewed as being our civic duty and realistic or not one we should anticipate. They can be very strict about refusals. I hope you can get one though, the compensation isn’t good enough. They need to pass legislation to ensure that employers cover pay and that the court covers additional expenses

Do they not in the UK? In Ireland your company must continue paying you as normal if you are called for jury duty.

Is this not one of the options for turning it down. Not in the uk but I turned it down 12 years ago as my children were still at primary school and I needed to collect them. They just summonsed me recently so they will accept a no, and put you back on their list.

I doubt very much if "despising public transport" is an acceptable reason.

I hope @Budapest99 you are able to claim additional expenses to enable you to do it, or postpone it to a better time.

@fruity81 sadly loss of earnings & childcare costs are not separate… thats my whole point. I only get £65 per day maximum to use on loss of earnings AND childcare.

Yes I get expenses (eg lunch & travel) but thats not the issue.

Sadly no family members I can use as they all work.

it is separate

one is expenses
one is specifically loss of earnings

my mistake apologies

I have been looking in to voir dire recently and it made me realise what a farse it all is. Maybe not for a case like murder but in a situation where the crime is rape, abuse, sexual assault, the defendant's legal representation uses their deselection / veto to get rid of any woman still young enough to be the mother of a small child and /or to get rid of above averagely attractive women as they apparently empathise more with the victims of sexual assault {i don't know where to start with this logic) and they get rid of older smartly dressed men who are taking it all very seriously and despair of the youth of today. The prosecution use their vetos to get rid of anybody who looks like he empathises with the defendant. How can they tell? Is it from the tracksuit bottoms??

Just tell them you can't do it! your name will come up again!

You need to apply to be excused
Otherwise you have to show up
Difficult as you want to do it,if you didn’t advice would be to turn up looking v smart and holding a daily mail and a Telegraph

I don’t think you can actually say “no” now? But maybe you can ask to defer to a later time?
It was pre covid when I was called and tbh it was going to be a pain in the backside but I still had to go along ( but wasn’t selected in the end- they seemed to have about 25 people to choose 12 from). Not every case lasts very long either so sometimes you are only needed for a couple of days.

In my situation the judge called all the possible jurors into the room and told everyone they “ had to do it as their civic duty” and then asked anyone who thought they might be excused to write it down on a piece of paper. About 6/7 people did and he read through them aloud in the courtroom- he refused every single one of them except someone who was booked to go on a holiday at the end of the week. He was very critical of people who had asked and didn’t entertain any reasons like childcare as a barrier! Hopefully not all judges are as hard on people as he was.