Financial hit of jury service

[Pheasantsfeather]

I've just been summoned for jury service. Checked the terms and conditions and our company will grant special leave to attend but you are unpaid. You can claim £64 per day back in expenses. My take home per day is three times that.

I am fully supportive of why I need to do it, but I can't believe I'm expected to take such a financial hit. If it were to go on for the full 10 days, I will be over £1000 out of pocket. I can't afford that, we have nursery and holiday club fees for 3x children and a mortgage to pay.

How can you be duty bound to do something that costs you so much in lost earnings?

We submitted something stating financial loss was unmanageable and would put us into debt and financial stress when my exh got called up. He was excused.

DH, who is self employed, got called up for jury service and was horrified when he realised how out of pocket he would be. If he has been on a long trial, it could have ruined his business. Luckily, they never actually needed him, but the whole episode caused us a lot of stress.

ETA I posted about it on MN and got little sympathy, lots of comments about ‘civic duty’ …

I’m nhs and I got “excused” as did a friend who was a teaching, but my friend who’s a school Mum did it and was there 5 weeks she was massively out of pocket. They should compensate people to what they would be earning. It’s really unfair.

I’d write to the court and explain that you can’t afford to loose 2/3rds of your salary and given the circumstances, please can you be excused, or say you need to do school runs and it wouldn’t be do-able.

The loss of earnings you can claim for is the £64 OP is referring to unfortunately. You don’t get anymore than that just because you earn more, that’s the max you claim if you earn over that amount.

It roughly doubles after 10 days.

It is awful. Many people want to do jury service, and it would be better if they had a list (and obviously investigated/checked them for basic competence and to avoid clearly problematic people, like those who post that women who aren't completely covered are asking for it). Or the ones who want it over with quickly, whether for financial reasons or otherwise.
You might say this would make a jury pool less representative, but surely it's better than having people on it who really don't understand things/are petrified to be there and just want out of it/would consider any victim who dresses a certain way a liar?

Not only do you not get your wages back, you don't even get the minimum wage

That would be illegal.

OP would be required to show evidence of the holiday booking before the date she was called up.

How large is the organisation you work for?

Does it specifically list 'Jury Service' as special leave?

Are you a salaried employee or hourly paid?

Check if there's any legal cover included in your home insurance - you can sometimes claim something for jury duty on that.

Did you have to prove that you were on holiday or did they take your word for it?

I am against jury service on principle as I think a lot of cases are too complex for members of the public to decide without adequate training.

DH and I are both self-employed and neither of us could afford to close our businesses indefinitely to go on jury duty. It's not just the loss of pay - if I (as a dog walker) was unavailable for weeks on end, I would lose my clients to someone else permanently!

I’m self employed and not a chance I’d be able to afford even a days jury duty. Nor would I put my vulnerable elderly clients at risk by doing so. No idea what I would do but there’s no way I would be able to attend

Do you have a remote role? I was lucky and could take my laptop and my work allowed me to work flexibly to make time up on the evenings/weekends/the following weeks if needed so that I didn’t have to loose earnings. I ended up not being called in and was there a grand total of 2.5 days before I was dismissed, which I spent the majority working in the waiting room.

I do agree with you though, it is a big unfair financial hit if you have to have the whole time off and just claim the loss of earnings.

Just to mention, at the time I was worried about being called for a 3 month trial, but found that the amount you can claim increases significantly after the standard 10 days.

I’m supposed to be in court this week but I deferred it to October. I hope it’s only a 2 week trial otherwise I’ll be bringing in my dog with me as I can only get 2 weeks with the dog minder.

Many employers will still pay you full salary.

I was called up a few years ago and asked to defer as had to do school runs. I haven't heard from them since, but then I did do it 3 times in my twenties so perhaps they thought I had been in enough!!

You can be pardoned. My dad was summoned. He’s self employed, so couldn’t earn if not working. The payment didn’t nearly cover his income. He explained it, and was pardoned.

Can you also claim childcare costs?

My husband was called twice in 5 years. The second time we were living in Japan… and they said it wasn’t a good enough reason 😂 Took me ages to get them to let him defer

If you commit a crime with a sentence less than 5 years you get out of it for a decade though lol.

Yes but it’s only £64 a day

Its appalling how we treat folks who do jury service.

i did it when I was 19 and it was a 16 week case. I was very very lucky as I had recently moved back in with my grandparents to save, but had I been in my flat I would have been absolutely crippled financially. I was also lucky that my employer didn’t cause trouble, a lad the same age as me was basically told his job was gone when it became clear we were going to be there for months.

Not only was it a financial nightmare for many, we saw, and heard, the most horrific things repeatedly over those weeks and then at the end we’re just told “thanks” and sent on our way with a warning not to discuss certain things. I ended up having counselling to deal with some of the things I’d seen and heard. The judge excused us for as long as he could (he wasn’t able to do it for life then, but I’ve never been called up again thankfully). I hope at least that side is better now.

You can only claim childcare costs above your usual costs.

So if your child is normally in childcare 8-6 you can’t claim any more

This is a good idea. You will have access to secure government WiFi and the connection speed is usually pretty good.

If you can find a way, do try to do if. If you were either a victim of crime or accused of a crime you'd want good people on your jury.