Help with Jury Service...

[PocketRocket123]

I was asked to do jury service Feb 2024 but due to no childcare for my young children, I deferred it for a year. I am still in the same situation and panicking about it as I have no option for childcare (losing sleep and worrying). My husband works away alot, sometimes away mon-fri and back on weekends and we moved away from family. Will I be able to be excused?

Have you got a date in 2025 when you will need to do your service?

The bar to further defer this civic duty is a high one but I don't think it's insurmountable.

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/delaying-or-being-excused-from-jury-service

Nobody can answer this question as it will be down to the clerk of court (I'm in Scotland it may differ elsewhere) - I was excused and after each year was up I was recalled but eventually got permanent excused on medical grounds.

you won't be excused again on childcare grounds. You will be expected to use your expenses towards childcare costs i'm afraid.

How old are your children?

I did jury service years ago and I was expected to register them in before and after school club and then claim the costs of childcare back. Which I was able to do.

Mine were primary school aged so not tiny, not sure on the rules if they are under school age.

What is your husband doing to help problem-solve while you are worrying yourself to the point of losing sleep? Can’t he take annual leave that week?

It’s crap that we are expected to upend our lives for jury service, but that’s the system we have.

OP, were you asked again to do jury service??
or you are worried that you will be asked again??

I know its random, but can be the same person be asked every year??

I was asked this year. I'm in England.

They wrote to me with a start date, which I was allowed to defer once as long as I selected a starting date at some point within the next 12 months.

I don't know if there's a limit on how many times you can be asked, but once you've served as a juror, you do have a two-year period where you can be excused if you get another summons (but you can serve again if that's your choice).

If annual leave is not possible, then he should apply for parental leave albeit unpaid most likely.

Appreciate your response but what if it goes on longer than a week? You have no idea how long the case will go on for. If I knew it was just a week it wouldn’t be a problem but it can potentially go on for a lot longer.

You can limit it to two weeks. It may not even be every day. There is possibility of a longer case but usually the judge accepts that some cannot do that.

The date I’m required to go is a few days before half term. The costs will not be covered for 2 children to go to school holiday clubs everyday. Surely childcare is something that is a strong case of whether you can attend at that date or not. I am clearly not going to leave my 4 & 5 year old unattended.

You need two weeks of cover. Can your husband take two weeks of holiday or can you get childcare for two weeks or some combination of both? If you cannot afford it, can you pick up some extra shifts to cover the cost?

I think you can claim around £65 a day for childcare but its less if you are not in court the whole day.

I do remember it being awkward as you dont even know if you will definitely be chosen and there is a lot of waiting around but obviously, you need childcare in place in case you are needed. So you may go through the stress and expense of paying for childcare and then not even need it but you wont know until you are doing the jury service.

To be honest I found it a big inconvenience but its the way the system is. I was out of pocket for my jury service as the costs I could claim didnt come close to my daily wage and my work wouldnt cover it.

Is there nobody else at all who can look after them?

My dd differed recently as she was at university so not in the right city so she was recalled in July when she was in her home city and it meant she couldn't work for a month so she's now having to make that money up whilst in her final year.

Most people aren't perfectly placed to carry out jury duty. People have lives and jobs and responsibilities but it's something that has to be done,

I was excused due to childcare. I couldn't drop my child off at nursery (when it opened) and make it to court.
I would defer and if it's not accepted then work around it. You're not supposed to ask if your partner can take holiday. Say his leave is rejected, his employer doesn't need to give him time off for your jury service.
Costs recharged back don't cover childcare cover so you will end up losing out. They assume most employers will keep on paying you.

You're unlikely to be excused again so you're going to have to find childcare if your DH can't take annual leave to cover it. You've been given a reasonable amount of notice if it's for 2025 so you'd be expected to book into wrap around and holiday clubs to cover it.

Exactly. I'm positive that there's more he can do to help. 🤔

You only need to worry about 2 weeks. Anything beyond that, the judge will only take people who can definitely commit to a longer trial.

You will need to book your children into holiday club/wraparound and claim back what you can on expenses.

Or your DH can take leave. Presumably he does take annual leave anyway so this shouldn't be an issue?

It's worth checking your home insurance to see if it covers you for jury duty expenses. Some do.

I'm sorry but it really isn't. The only exception to this is very young babies and breastfeeding infants. They expect you to do your civic duty and they don't really care if the expenses cover all your costs. Its the same with employed people, your employer does not have to pay you whilst you do jury service and most of us earn a lot more than £60 a day but we have to suck it up. I know its a pain, I've been there as has DH, we used a combination of paid childcare and annual leave from work.

My DH did it and they asked when there was a longer case, he said he couldn't so he wasn't picked. In fact he never did any jury service, sat around for one whole day, got sent home lunchtime the second and told not to come back unless requested, and dismissed completely a couple of days later. From what he saw most cases were short. A bit disappointing really having deferred and then arranged to be available for the next slot.

You are expected to pay for childcare out of your expenses.

It's the same as a self employed person who potentially can lose £1000s in earnings. I'm self employed and earn a lot more than the £65 a day they pay. I still have to go and do it.

One of the ideas around deferring is that you have time to make arrangements. I was allowed to defer and it has given me time to arrange cover. So not only do I lose income I also have to pay someone to do my job. Mine is in November.

They won't force you to do more than 2 weeks. I did it 25 years ago and we were all asked if we could do a long fraud trial. Those with a good reason were allowed not to do it. Childcare would be a good reason.

@PocketRocket123 I completely get feeling stuck OP. I’ve only ever been called once and was excused due to a scheduled surgery but I know I will be recalled again.

If I were to be called now: I don’t drive and the court I would likely have to attend is minimum 1h 50mins away on public transport, plus a 20 min walk to get to the transport from home. My DH works offshore for weeks at a time and due to the nature of his job he does not get annual leave so it wouldn’t be as easy as him just taking time off to cover. We have no family nearby. I have a 3yo who has taken almost a year to start settling into nursery due to severe separation anxiety. He would absolutely not tolerate going to an unknown childminder or any form of wraparound care, plus I’d have to drop him off at about 6am to even attempt to make it to court on time.
I genuinely don’t know what I would do!

Hope you manage to get something sorted!

You could have asked to have been excused in the first place. I did that as I said I’d be in the same position with the next 12 months. I’m not sure what happens now.

Yup it’s so impractical for many people. One of the(many)reasons I asked to be excused was that my child went to preschool for 3 hours 3 times a week. It didn’t operate before 9 or after 3.15. I couldn’t just find random child care around that for unknown dates.

Why did you say you could do a date that is before half term if you can’t?
I deferred last year and had to give three start dates and an order of preference. Did you not pick dates that were not over holidays?