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 is a shit policy your employer has not to pay you. Is there parental leave and sick leave also rubbish?

Thanks to this thread I have checked my Direct Line legal cover and it does indeed reimburse lost wages ( seemingly without limit) for jury service. You have to claim the first bit back from the court but they pay the rest if your employer won't.

DD got called up in her final year at uni, but the date was just a few weeks before semester started. She turned up as required on day 1 and was sent away within the hour, not needed. It's hard to predict what will happen.

It needs a thorough reassessment to get the balance right. I think it’s reasonable that we all take a small, affordable hit to support fair justice. Jury trials are the bedrock of democracy. But the state funding should be a bit more generous and employers should be expected to provide something more skin to maternity pay.

It really is. It's a disgrace.

I was also on a horrific case (but not as bad as yours, I suspect) that over-ran by several weeks. I had nightmares for years. We were excused for five years. But you were only 19 - what a horrible thing to have to cope with.

I wouldn't worry about it. It was the most boring 2 weeks of my life. I attended court every single day and wasn't selected once!

I thought the same. Lots of women act as their husband’s PAs!

That’s shit of your workplace! Ours is 2 weeks paid then unpaid but the company helps you claim your salary using the loss of earnings forms that you get from the court.
the fault you mentioned is just for expenses so separate from claiming back your salary.

£64.95 is most you can claim for loss of earnings in the first 10 days, after that it’s £129.91. You can’t claim any higher then that regardless of your actual salary.

Expenses wise above that you can claim £5odd for food and drinks, and travel expenses to and from court.

It’s crazy that people are subjected to seeing and hearing horrific things with no back up and no checking on them.

I also found it very strange after 4 months just never hearing from any of the other jurors. We were told (wrongly I now believe) that we weren’t allowed to keep in contact. So the lady that found out she was pregnant mid way through did she have a boy or a girl? The man I sat next too the whole time was scared it was going to impact his next work exams as he was struggling to study but he needed to pass to make his promotion permanent etc.

its a very weird expectation on people with no opportunity to debrief.

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if this has already been discussed .... but what is the alternative to jury service? What do other countries do?

I did it when I was 18 ... haven't been called again and I'm late 50s now. A colleague recently did it and she was stunned at how little attention some of the jurors paid to the evidence etc. They weren't taking notes, yawning .. saying how dull it all was in the breaks. We are talking about peoples lives and freedom at stake here. Madness.

As is often the case the first poster nails it.

Its really time to get rid of juries and have judges instead. They manage just fine in other European countries.

They often have a panel of judges so it's not just one making decisions.

And their approach is different too - we have an adversarial system where one lawyer "fights" against another to convince the jury or judge/magistrate depending on the type of case. In eg Germany they have an inquisitorial system where the idea is to get to the truth.

It’s rubbish. We lost about £1k when DH did Jury Service a couple of years ago. Just grateful he didn’t get put on a long case.

Exactly. This is why I think the jury system isn't sustainable. I have heard some awful stories of juries having to be replaced because they were messaging/discussing/googling things related to the case. A colleague was on jury service several years ago and she said that some of the other members really weren't capable of listening or understanding anything about the case. It is very concerning.

Also if it's a high profile case then most of the jurors would have pre-conceived ideas about it from the media.

Wow! How awful. I wonder what proportion of the people called are excused? It must be high. I’m late 50s and have never been called. I’m sure I would be excused though because I have a chronic illness which has brain fog and fatigue as symptoms.

I was recently on a jury where one of the others on the panel was a qualified lawyer but works in a completely different area of the law. Once we got into deliberation they went off on a total tangent trying to re-interpret the wording of the charge, rather than focussing on the actual points of "Did he do it" and "Did he intend to do it" which were the only questions we had been asked to consider.
Sometimes a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

Yes. Actually the first time I got a letter I totally panicked as I had a job about to start and I’d had an unusually long break between contracts so finances were dire.

the person I spoke to on the phone said to me “you never got a letter, just leave it”.

I’ve had several letters since and I always ignore and had no issues since.

it’s a shame as I’d love to participate because I think the jury system is so important but I think they just do it all wrong, this random request at any point. If it was a system where people had to commit to say one case every 4 years but you could sign up when it was convenient (off season for seasonal workers, between contracts for freelancers, when kids have started school etc)maybe it would work a bit better.

@bigfacthunter yes I agree completely. I'd also like to do it but it's just not practical.

Very good point about not proving you received the letter 🤫

While I was employed by local government/university system I would have been happy to do jury duty as I would have received full pay. The summons came when I was self employed and simply could not spare the time. So I got exemption on "mental health" grounds. Now I'm over 75 I don't need to worry about it any more. I agree its a pity but if we are going to have a jury system you cannot expect working people to lose money in a COL crisis.

Jury summons are sent by standard post so you can always claim you never got the letter. There is no way to prove you did unless it was sent signed for and you actually signed for it.

I don't accept signed for letters unless its something I'm expecting. Or I ask the postie to show it to me before I sign.

I can tell you now. There’s lots of sitting around and it’s bloody boring. Iv done it 3 times so now I’m exempt from doing it again

Im obvs under the misapprehension that your work have to give you time off and pay you. My friend was allowed to not go due to childcare issues.

Public sector workers?! My FE college would NOT pay my wages!