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?

It is a difficult hit for many, but promoting the idea of more taxes going to pay jurors hasn't appealed to any political party as a vote winner.

Funding anything for the courts seems to have long been a low political priority. It's all a mess

I’d love to do it, would be paid in full and I’ve never been called! DH has been called 3 times, managed to defer 2 because of holidays we had booked but went the third time. Nice short days and a short commute. A something and nothing case really but an interesting experience all the same.

@modgepodge I have a law degree and a masters in criminal justice and spent almost my entire working life in the jobs involving courts and our criminal justice system. I do agree with all of your comments completely!

I would also add if I was ever charged with a crime (and was innocent!) I would not want a jury trial although I would want to chance my luck if I was guilty! I’ve actually done jury service and it was an appalling waste of time (and money)! I once had to attend a complex eight defendant trial in a Scandinavian country and what would have been a (minimum) three month trial in the U.K. took six weeks as the courts are judge led! I can’t recall any complaints about the judicial system in any of these countries?

I know the U.K. system was changed a bit in the naughties (meaning I personally couldn’t avoid jury service!) but the joke always was why would you want a jury of 12 people too stupid to get out of jury service! If you can make a good hardship case op, you should have no issue being excused.

Did you miss the bit where they were living in Japan?!

I have had to asked to be excused it due to a pelvis injury 10 years ago which means I can’t sit for long periods (and I no longer can work a desk job… let alone sit on a bench the whole day!). They still asked me twice! I just filled out the form they send with your summons and got a letter back being excused.

They will take into account your circumstances. Financial hardship is valid. Risk of losing your job / damage to your business (not sure if you’re self-employed or employed. What about childcare? Will you be able to manage drop offs and get to court in time? Are you the primary carer? If it’s going to cause chaos you can say and they do listen. Bung it on the form! And don’t feel bad, some people actually want to do it

It’s a real shame as it means lots of people aren’t really tried by a jury or their peers, but a jury made up of those privileged enough to be able to participate in jury service

Maybe there could be some kind of insurance for businesses who cannot afford to pay staff? I really don’t think it’s fair that an individual should be expected to lose £1000 or more in some cases. I certainly couldn't afford this and I’m sure many others couldn’t either. It’s not like you’re off having a nice time on holiday.

I completely understand how important jury service is but I’m afraid I have had to avoid it three times now. I have been self employed for years and just me running the company. It was a role that paid on results and with mortgage etc I just couldn’t take the hit. I explained the circumstances each time as it was accepted.

Small - medium business and I'm salaried.

my son is currently doing jury service. He started during the heatwave. He is just home from Uni for the summer. His case is into its third week, although I believe it should be finished by Friday. He gets £5 a day for food and travel. Ive had to drive him (which is quite a way) a few times because the trains were cancelled when the tracks buckled. He is extremely tired.
Looking at the forms there uis a standard payment but I think there is another that you can get for loss of earnings. Sadly he is only paid casually by our business so I dont think being paid by your mum counts.

You can also claim for travel expenses, you get a good allowance albeit not much and you can claim childcare and dog care. There is a maximum per day but not sure what that is.

but yes a lot end up out of pocket but the above may help.

That should say food allowance not good allowance!

Its ridiculous. I was happy to receive the letter, I thought it would be an interesting experience. I was shocked at the compensation you receive. Luckily we could afford the drop in my earning. The first week got cancelled very last minute due to a lack of judges. And then I was sick the next week so I didn't get to do it anyway.

Because how could he do it? We were IN JAPAN, didn’t have a spare £2000 to fly home and then money for hotels on top and weren’t moving back until a year later.

I managed to get out of it a few years ago I just put in the response reasons why I couldn’t do it and the main one was childcare and I had no one to pick up my eldest from school and no one to have my baby because they couldn’t specify exact times and dates it was literally just that I put and I was excused

Can you not just say you don't like XXXX type of person and would convict whatever? Where XXXX = some characteristic of the defendant.

That's interesting. Never thought of that one.

Have you or your colleagues ever been contacted?

I did it this year, many were out of pocket. The travel expenses you can claim if you combine driving/ parking/ train costs and you don't even get a drink. I was working and studying when first called and hoped to be excused but I had to give alternative dates instead. Those sayimg claim for loss of earnings, as OP has said it is £64 a day they don't pay your normal wages.

My employer pays full pay if you are called up for jury service. They do the same for reservists/TA called up for deployment. It’s a US company and they see it as a corporate duty.

Yes this - I work in retail and was working for Next who wouldn’t pay, a friend worked for Kurt Geiger and was paid. My mum hates Next now. It’s something I’d like to be a lot more transparent. We do our civic duty but our employers should support this. I appreciate there are also self-employed people. At my trial, we had to approach the judge in full court (defendants there too) if we felt we should be excused from the long trial. My son was graduating but I wasn’t excused. Even a woman with a very young baby wasn’t!
I do take issue with those saying it should be down to experts. We had two huge ring binders of information, it was a massive learning curve but I feel all 12 of us understood very well.

I was on jury duty once. Case lasted over 2 months. Same thing for me but the loss was much less than yours. I could claim daily travel though, which I couldn't for work, so I almost broke even. Played havoc on my tax code so my first proper wage after returning to work was a mess. This was about 15 years ago.

There was someone retired on our jury who was beyond fucked off because they couldnt claim anything at all (as no financial loss and a free bus pass) and it was about their time that they were giving up. They didn't have a good enough reason to be excused. In turn they didn't bother listening to evidence, wanted it over quickly, and frankly was a liability. There should be processes in place to stop people like this being "involved" IMO.

I don’t think this is true, I’m on minimum wage and I had to do it. The rest of the jury was mixed - some got full pay from their employers, some self-employed, one zero hour contract who got the worst deal (because she did same hours every week as a carer but her employer wouldn’t submit proof), one was on maternity leave with a young baby, one retired.

I think it’s disgraceful that you’re not paid by your employer. If a company wants to operate in this country, then they should be forced to pay for their employees to attend jury service in the same way that they are forced to pay annual leave days.

The government financial compensation should then just be for out of pocket expenditure such as childcare and travel costs.

Oh yes I remember now - I got paid wrongly by work (I did shifts when not on the jury) and shockingly, wrongly by the court! Was a mess.

No why were YOU explaining to the court why he couldn't do it? As in sorting that out

You said it took YOU ages to get them to let him defer