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?

I think this thread brings a much needed bucket of cold water reality to the issue of jury duties.

When it was suggested to cut the number of jury trials then there was and continues to be outcry, protests and accusations of an authoritarian state.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec/07/authoritarian-state-trial-by-jury-uk

Yet as we've seen on this thread whenever anyone is asked to do unpaid and open ended jury service then they understandably seek to get out of it.

As with many things the average voter wants jury service to continue (and sees it's removal as authoritarian) provided someone else (and definitely not them) does the unpaid work.

I cant believe the financial compensation is so minimal,.that's staggering

In my line of work I could be replaced for a whole 3 month contract if I took even a couple of days for jury duty. So a 5 day court case could have me miss out on £10k+.

What I and everyone in my industry does is completely ignore the letters. I don’t call anyone up, don’t acknowledge anything. I would recommend this tactic as they can’t prove you got it.

Good luck! The whole situation is ridiculous.

It’s amazing the amount of people who think they pay you your full wage 😂 they absolutely do not. We were very hurt financially for three weeks whilst my dh did his.

My friend.dod it recently. She was paid through her job but many weren't. It surprised her.
One man was going to his job in the evening to make up the time as he worked for a small company. One woman wasn't allowed to miss it even though she had a holiday booked

One woman said she knew she alleged person as she happily walked out....

But the upshot is that yeh govt scheme isn't great. If your employer supports it you are ok. If it doesn't you will be at a financial loss

Also there are lots of logistics such as shared parkings, entrances..... So be prepared!

I’d be happy to do some unpaid work for a bit if nursery would do me some unpaid childcare, Halifax would put a pause on my mortgage payments and Tesco would bung me some free groceries.

I got a letter summoning me to jury duty, about 20 years ago. I’d just recently been diagnosed with depression and really wasn’t functioning properly - the letter sent me in a tail spin. I responded stating I wasn’t in a good state of mind, I was on antidepressants and didn’t think I would be able to concentrate on a case never mind make verdict decisions. I received a letter back saying I would never be called for jury duty ever again!

I don’t want jury service to continue in its current format. I don’t pretend to be a legal expert but I am a relatively intelligent, well-educated person and I don’t understand why juries are considered the holy grail.

I can’t see why a panel of educated professionals who actually understand the law and have had training in things like unconscious bias wouldn’t be a better option.

The assumption that a group of random people who have a variety of intellects, biases, predjuces and probably financial pressures (meaning people are keen for it to be over asap) are the best way of determining if someone is guilty of a crime or not will never not be mind blowing to me.

It goes without saying you almost certainly won’t be able to work at full capacity, as there are a lot of interruptions during the day, you won’t be able to take calls/meetings, or do certain tasks that require privacy for gdpr reasons etc, and need to be immediately available if you’re called onto a case, however always worth an ask as the employer might be willing to pay at least pay a small amount if you’re able to do some here and there during the downtime you get.

Yes, but the cap applies to the sum of lost earnings and care costs:

"What you can claim
There’s a limit to how much you can claim for each day you’re at court.
Loss of earnings, childcare and other care costs
How much you can claim to cover loss of earnings and care costs depends on the length of your jury service and how many hours you spend at court each day.
For the first 10 days of jury service, you can claim up to:

• £64.95 a day if you spend more than 4 hours at court
• £32.47 a day if you spend 4 hours or less at court

If your jury service lasts longer than 10 working days, the amount you can claim increases. You’ll be able to claim up to:

• £129.91 a day if you spend more than 4 hours at court
• £64.95 a day if you spend 4 hours or less at court"

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/what-you-can-claim-if-youre-an-employee

There’s the financial loss but also the cases you could be exposed to. Everyone I know who has done it was unfortunately jury for child abuse cases. I’ve not heard of any other case. That’s just anecdotal and of course if your child was the victim, you would want to have a decent jury in place.

But the toll on those who have to live with hearing upsetting evidence is just ignored. One poor guy was about to put on a third CSA case that was going to last weeks, when his employer called him back for urgent project that he was essential for, because it was a matter of public safety. The judge can excuse jurors once jury service is underway, but only in exceptional circumstances .

I was genuinely gobsmacked about this when I found out only last year or so, I earn about £250 a day net and I would be livid to just be expected to lose that.

I would very happily do jury duty, I'm a very civic minded sort of person and I cope well with horrors and awful stuff (child protection social worker for a long time), so I'd be a good candidate. But no way could I afford to do it.

DD2 got called a few weeks ago. I replied saying that she has various SN, would not cope with the court environment or hearing and processing evidence, nor the process of coming to a verdict, and it would be actively harmful to make her serve. Evidence could be supplied. I gave my mobile number.

I got a text message a few days later saying 'You've been excused from jury service.'

Honestly I would be more annoyed with my employer, it’s really poor from a CSR and people policy perspective that the time is unpaid.

I was on a jury a few years ago. The offence was "triable either way" so wasn't all that serious and we heard evidence for two days. I still struggled with it after the trial finished so I dread to think what happens to those who sit on more serious cases.

I also agree that the system needs to be reformed. I remember one of the other people in my pool was panicking as she'd been told she could claim for loss of earnings or childcare but not both, she didn't end up being picked in the end. My employer paid me the shortfall but insisted upon seeing proof of how much the court were paying me before they'd pay me their bit!

I did jury service recently, it was a very interesting experience but I was affected financially. If you can get your employer to pay you, with the promise of working from the jury lounge, then that would be ideal. One lady on my jury did that.

Thinking about being called for a long trial - there's a form to fill out at the beginning - part of it asks if there's any reason you can't do more than 2 weeks - I said it would affect my new self employed work and I wasn't called for the long murder trial.

Towards the end of my 2 weeks I developed a bad back from all the sitting around and long car journey, and I was excused from joining a new case. My husband also got excused on the grounds of back pain.

It's a rubbish system where people lose out so much financially, I hope you can find a way around it.

I told them I wasn’t mentally stable and I was excused.

I think employers should be duty bound to continue paying your wages while on jury service. It’s not like you’re on holiday and you don’t have much choice. Luckily, I was paid my full salary, but it was inconvenient. It’s not reasonable to expect people to lose so much money. Hard for self-employed too. I’d do anything to get out of it if I was in your shoes.

I got called up and was unable to do it because of medical reasons. I had to provide proof and I think I am only officially excused for a certain time period before I have to re-provide proof if called.

To a maximum of £64 a day. That's not going to cover most people's loss of income

Why were you getting them to defer him rather than him doing it??

Glad I won't get called Wouldn't be able to hear what was said without subtitles so think that's a good reason

Eeek all those people are peers, don't be such a snob

I dreaded ever being called as self-employed. The hit, esp if it went on for weeks would've seen me go under.
I think it's a shit way of doing it, they should pay what we lose.

Depends on the size of the employer. We have 6 staff who have to work on site. No chance of remote work. Every hour has to be covered if someone is off on holiday or sick. We just could not afford to do this. Neither could most small business I’d wager.

I’m really surprised the money is so low.

My MiL was highly incensed recently. She’s 79 and was claled
for jury service. She was thinking it would be a good use of her time, wisdom and age. Then the next week a letter arrived saying sorry a mistake had been made And she was too old! She was not happy with that letter!!