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 replied that I couldn’t do it and you have to suggest a date, I offered a date six months later and they replied saying ‘you are now doing this date and can not be excused’ … i had zero childcare and I
have never been so stressed even with notice to sort it out, then they rang me three days before and asked if I wanted to be excused as I was no longer needed. Never been so thankful!

No they don't, I was on a historical sexual abuse trial last year and there was a very wide section of people on with me, ages, gender, attractiveness, one young woman said the issues happened before she was born!
The group who really lose out are the self employed, the rate is about £70 a day for loss of earnings.
The channel 4 programme this week , The Jury, was interesting.

my mum got out of jury service because she looked after my dc and I couldn’t get out of work without losing a lot of pay. She is still annoyed about it years later as she wanted to do it too.

As far as I know, you won’t be dismissed if your reason is you can’t afford to take the time off. You WILL be dismissed if you say you have an airplane trip planned that you cannot cancel. They don’t have the resources or time to request proof of tickets, they will just dismiss you. But the pay thing is not a valid excuse.

And they wonder while people laughed at the idea of a Citezens Army. Treat people like shit and then wonder why they laugh at the idea of doing things for their country,

Hmm are you sure you only get 65 loss of earnings? I had a form for my employer to fill in about how much they pay me and that got reimbursed by the court. But you can definitely offer to work from home until you get an actual trial because you are just sitting around.

You would think they would have a creche though. Stupid.

I think Jury Duty is a hideous imposition on people especially when all the pompous judges, solicitors and barristers are so overpaid. Why should the general public be forced to do this at a loss to themselves? They should pay all expenses for childcare and an equivalent amount to your salary. Civic duty is a joke when they feel no compunction to pay enough to ensure people can make ends meet. If I were you I’d ask to be excused on financial grounds. Good luck!

I was called, but had literally just given birth... Thankfully they excused me and to date haven't been called again, but my son was {the one I gave birth to!} he wasn't selected though not sure why{I don't think everyone is?} - he was relieved as self employed and would have lost a lot of money.

I completely agree with you - It's so important that Jurors are impartial and have the intelligence to listen - and not be biased.

Totally agree. It also means a juror could be sitting in court worrying about how they are going to make ends meet instead of concentrating on the case.

People in charge must be as thick as mince not to realise this.

Omg I find it terrifying you think this! An elite cross selection of people deciding on often disadvantaged people’s lives’ is absolutely not my idea of justice in a democracy!!! Also why I’ll never vote Tory 😂 I literally cannot think of a worse imbalance of power. Jury duty is designed to give a fair representation of society.. of course it’s not perfect but it’s a small part of an already very very imbalanced system.

You’re spot on though about it needing to be reimbursed properly for those participating. Sorry if I missed your point originally!

Out of interest why do you think employers cover pay? I mean if you work for Tesco, sure they probably wouldn’t notice so much and other staff can pick up your slack for a day or a week. But if youre a waitress at the local cafe, how are we expecting a small business like this to pay for AND cover this kind of time? That could be 50 or even more % of their workforce off. And then the owner (an individual) is forced to find childcare for their child to cover these missed shifts? Work yet another day/week underpaid and exhausted.

same with any small or medium sized business - which this government pretends to support but clearly doesn’t.

I’d ask to be excused. I know you’re excited, but from what i’ve heard, it can also be very boring, very traumatic depending on the case, or even very frustrating depending on who the other jurors are.

What I also don’t get is for those parents who work part time or who are SAHPs, nevermind the cost of extra childcare, I’m surprised people can even get childcare in the first place. All the childcare facilities here are full for the next year, you can’t just be like ‘oh can I send little Johnny to nurseru an extra day for 2 weeks next month’.

Awful system that needs completely restructuring. I don’t even think random members of the public should be on juries. I think it’s really inappropriate.

A high profile Crown Court case where an innocent young woman was murdered had the Judge himself in tears at the end.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/13/becky-watts-trial-judge-cries-nathan-matthews-shauna-hoare

If a case can affect a Judge so deeply, think what it can do to those not so used to hearing and seeing gruesome photographs of the victim and crime scenes.
some cases are so distressing that jurors are excused jury service after serving on these cases for life.

Can you go onto Ryanair and book a very cheap flight to help you get excused? I expect it would work out cheaper to do that and say you have a holiday booked!

If not I would just be telling them that I have to bring my children to the court with me. I think it’s a total shambles that you’re expected to be so out of pocket to do jury service. It’s very unfair. And what’s the other option? You leave young kids at home alone? Leave them in the car? Ridiculous.

I know the Simpsons and Family Guy have joked about people disliking jury duty. But, it's unfair ordinary people should be out of pocket and inconvenienced.

I don’t think op can do that. I think they will only accept holidays that were already booked, not clearly booked after the summons!

Oh this is such a timely thread for me! I’ve just received notification that I may be called in the next twelve months and have a form to complete and return. I want to ask to be excused for similar reasons to @AzureSheep and hope they will accept my request.

Health professionals are not exempt. I was allowed to defer but not exempted and had to do it
Also have young children, this also did not exempt me, but again allowed to defer up to 12 months, when luckily 1 was in school so reduced costs

This post aptly demonstrates the chasm between the middle class left and the working class. (and im saying this as a working class woman on the left) Not one mention or even an acknowledgement in this post that a long trial or even a short one can make the difference between being able to pay rent/buy food/ or in the case of the self employed........even lose a whole contract.

OOps @babyproblems Looks like i missed your point originally too. Sorry Ignore previous post

It's not really a class thing as much as an employer thing. In the NHS you get your full pay when on jury service whether you are admin/porter/HCA on lower pay, or the chief exec. Same for council employees, and other state run services, big businesses etc. Self employed people can also claim more if they submit 2 years worth of business accounts to evidence their average monthly earnings, although appreciate your point about loosing contracts and impact on future earnings. Its those who work for small businesses who can't afford to pay someone when not working who struggle the most, this could be at any level of pay

I would just be telling them that I have to bring my children to the court with me.

"Just" is doing some MN heavy lifting again there.

Courts and a jury summons are not something to be messed around with.

Social Services would say the same thing about having to leave your kids at home alone which is the only other option if you cant get childcare