Jury service expenses are ridiculous

[Dinosaurus86]

Posting here partly for traffic, partly because it is ridiculous and wondering if anyone has experience.

Have just been called for jury service. I am PT self employed. Have a one year old not in any formal childcare. I also have a just turned four year old who is in nursery for two full days and one further short one / week. The wording of my letter seems to suggest that you can get a maximum amount of £64/ day to cover both loss of earnings and additional childcare costs. Does anyone know if this is correct? Because it is less than even the full day rate for nursery before I even take any loss of earnings into account - and that is just for one child - no idea what I’d do about the younger one. We have some family but not enough to cover full time, and she isn’t used to being away from me. Not sure if I should attempt to defer or if will just have the same problems in a few months… help!!!

The expenses are ridiculous, fortunately my employer paid my salary as usual and I claimed for loss of earnings from the court and paid my employer what I was able to claim for. If I hadn't been able to do that then we would have been too stretched financially and I would have had to defer. I felt for the self employed people who were losing money while we were sitting around waiting to be called. That being said I did find the whole process fascinating and I sat on a really interesting case. I would definitely do it again.

Or anyone. A day's pay at NMW is more than the expenses, before higher wages or childcare costs.

People can be hundreds of pounds out of pocket if not more. Which will lead to holes in budgets that could well be unaffordable. Or at least, why should people do it without their costs being covered?

I was called up when my son was about 9 months old (early 2024) and was excused (not deffered) due to being a stay at home mum without any childcare options available to me at that time or within the defferal period. (I wrote that unless I can bring my son I won't be able to attend and I don't think that's generally acceptable court etiquette)

I was a bit annoyed though really as I would have loved to have been asked before I had him, just awful timing! Hopefully I'll be called again when I'm no longer looking after a child!

They won't pay you any more than the basic rate, and I'm pretty sure that also covers lunches, parking etc!

I got excused when breastfeeding DS. He is now 9 and I haven't been called since!
I had done it twice while at at Uni though - thankfully short cases!!

It is ridiculous and is particularly unfair towards women.

When I did it, I was able to defer once but had to accept the next offer. Like you I was self employed, part time, with two kids in childcare.

I also live rurally, and my court was a 45 minutes drive with no public transport option.

I lost money doing it. It's so wrong.

Its why I didn't do it when I was called a few years ago. DH also SE and we just could not afford to lose my income at that time, I probably would have lost the entire contract so an years income not just the few weeks
I managed to get out of it rather than defer, I would have loved to have done it though

I was called up for the second time when my son was eight months old and I was four months pregnant…I was excused

My DH has been called several times but managed to get excused. Between the minimal pay (he charges £100+ per hour) and the damage it would do to his client base in not being able to do the work scheduled then it could be hugely detrimental to his business.

sorry yes, per day. Chamber of Commerce is something similar.

I got called when I had a 1 year old, I was a sahm, my mum looked after my child. I’m glad that I went, the case was very interesting. I didn’t claim any expenses.

I wrongly assumed that all employees still get paid, but just looked it up and seen that it’s not a legal requirement, however many employers do pay. Pretty sure mine does.

Defer. I've been called at least 3 times but always had valid reasons to defer.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. It cost us nearly £1000 for DH to do jury service last year. I could have cried! It's absolutely ridiculous.

DH was called twice and wrote to be excused because he was self employed and the loss of earnings would have been untenable.

It also makes the jury panel skewed because of who gets to defer.

If there is a case that is likely to go on for more than two weeks, you can exclude yourself if your employer doesn’t cover it/are self-employed. So public sector workers make up a bigger proportion of jurors, particularly on major cases.

I was excused. Briefly explained that I’m a single parent without any support and a day-rate contractor.

It cost us a fortune when DH did it as he was self employed at the time... I didn't know until reading these comments that you could defer on that basis!

Be careful what you wish for.

You might be sitting through horrendous details and look at pictures and hear 999 evidence.

It might be so bad, your excused jury service altogether. You've got to live with it though.

Why would you wish that on yourself.
There's no way on earth I want to.listen to gruesome and vile things in a courtroom. Hardly fun is it?

I loved the jury service when I did it, but yes, for you I would defer in your position

I'd love to do it but that wouldn't cover my day rate. Is it even minimum wage?

Just defer and say you have no childcare or similar. I did that and wasn't called again for 15 years!!!

Was this per day or for the whole of your service? I use to be a member but cancelled a couple of years ago because I couldn't justify the cost. Now I'm starting to question this!

@OutieModeOn is correct in that you can defer once but next time you have to do it, usually within the year. I am puzzled as to why people seem so keen - I did it as my duty but is incredibly traumatic with no support afterwards, I didn’t feel safe with the defendants not remanded (travelling on the same train each day) and the public gallery who were clearly checking us out. My case took 7.5 weeks. Each member of the jury who felt they had a valid reason for not being on “the long case” had to step forward and explain to the judge, in the courtroom with everyone present (including defendants and their barristers) in the first day. I had to explain a very personal reason and was denied though court didn’t sit for one day, allowing me to go to the prearranged event (think family wedding hundreds of miles away). It was a massive learning curve with the intelligence and information we had to learn. At the end one of the original three was found guilty. I have a letter exempting me for 15 years. From time to time I google to see if I can find out the sentence - a few months ago I discovered to my dismay that the judge used the wrong sentencing guidelines and he got 2 years where he should’ve got 7+. Which means he’s definitely out now.

Some time ago I got called for jury service when my daughter was about 2. I was working as a contractor (so if I didn’t work, I wouldn’t get paid) and my daughter was in FT childcare which was just about covered by my contract. I called the court and explained the situation - they suggested that I deferred, explaining that it would cause me serious financial hardship.
ive actually never been called since.

My daughter was called up last year for jury service, she's developmentally under 3 months and tempting though it was to drop her off at court then dash home for a sleep, I filled in the forms and she was excused, but from what I recall, I had to put a lot of detail in, it wasn't as straightforward as I would have thought.