Questions about jury service

melancholly

don't worry about the clothes - plenty of people have already said that won't be an issue.

on the upside, most of jury service will be spent sitting around and you should end up with plenty of time to revise!

McKneff

Zingy wrote: »

The public transport part has confused me slightly. There is a bus I could catch but doing that would mean a 40 minute minimum walk to the court and a journey of well over an hour when it would take me 30 minutes if I drove. Would they really expect me to do this? I have to walk about 30 minutes from the park and ride so its not about being lazy. I don't fancy having to leave my house about 7 and not getting back at 7pm either!

There is no reason why you cant use your car and claim a mileage allowance, ring them and ask for reassurance. Keep a note of your mileage, and keep any parking tickets.

Take any revision books with you, there is a lot of waiting around time.
You attend at first but you are not neccesarily be chosen to sit on a particular jury, you might even be home before lunch. Then you just keep going back till you are chosen.

Cornish_piskie

This is on the HM Courts website:

By car

If travelling by car you are entitled to claim for your mileage at the standard mileage rate (please see the allowance sheet for exact mileage rate).
In circumstances where a car is used and there is no viable public transport, car parking charges may also be reimbursed in full or in part, up to a maximum equivalent to the charges for the cheapest convenient car park.

I read that as possibly only reimbursing car park charges where public transport isn't viable but actually claiming mileage no problem. My experience was however, that I had to justify not using the train from my home town to the City that the Court was in and this was then scrutinised and signed off by the Jury Clerk. The staff at the Court are usually very helpful - a quick phone call to them direct should answer any specific expense queries. You could also mention the exam and ask what they think;)

The_One_Who

You may not even have to go to court, and once there you may not even be called. I recently had jury service and there were about sixty people there. Sod's law that my number was called, but everyone else got to go home. We were told that if there was some reason that we couldn't be impartial, like knowing the people involved, then we were to speak to the clerk about it.

Definitely take a book or two to read, there can be a lot of sitting around.

McKneff

You are paid loss of earnings, if you go to the court and are sent home you are expected to go into work in the afternoon and the court will pay for your morning, If you are told one day not to go in to the court the next day, you are expected to go into work. So you should not be any worse off after your jury service stint.

If you do a full day at the court, you will be paid for it up to a certain amount. The details are published on the website.

Savvy_Sue

McKneff wrote: »

Please try not to wear jeans, couple of quid will get you some trousers from a charity shop or £1 from a car boot sale.
Just relax and go with the flow.

Whyever not? It's not as if anyone's going to see them! Bit like the 'Ninja Nun shouldn't have been wearing trainers' to the Royal Wedding hoo ha: who cares what she had on her feet? And no-one will see the OP's jeans while she's in court as she'll be sitting down!

McKneff wrote: »

You are paid loss of earnings, if you go to the court and are sent home you are expected to go into work in the afternoon and the court will pay for your morning, If you are told one day not to go in to the court the next day, you are expected to go into work. So you should not be any worse off after your jury service stint.

Um, not necessarily. The form the employer is asked to sign asks whether or not the juror can work a half day if not needed for a full day: if not then a full day's expenses are paid even if only half a day is spent at court. But it doesn't sound as if the OP's employer will want her for odd half days. And the expenses the court pays are definitely less than my colleague's earnings when they did jury service. We paid normal wages less the court payments, but not all employers do (nor are they required to), so you might end up out of pocket.

phunkles

Hi
I did jury service last month.
On your first day youll be asked to attend at like 9.30 in the court I attended during cases we where asked to show up and be ready for 10/10.30/11 the rest of the time. You get asked to show up early on the first day to watch a video/dvd and to get your forms checked etc.

Clothing - no flip flops or football shirts or wife beaters.
Everyone on my jury started off in trousers and smart tops and by the end it had digressed to jeans and tshirts with hoodies and trainers/uggs etc - the chairs are uncomfortable so if your clothing is uncomfortable its even worse!!!

Going into court - approximately 15/18 people go to the court room and names are drawn at random to sit on the jury of 12. When you first enter the room and before people are selected you are asked if you recognise the defendent - if yes you are excluded and asked to leave. If you are selected then you will take a seat in the jury panel box. At this point a list of the witnesses will be read out and if you know them then again you are excused and some one else will be selected to sit in the jury. Your then sworn in and the list of the charges will be read out. Once your sworn in you cant leave the case - the case I got put on was horrible and I cant pretend it wasnt because it was.

When you get called to the court to be sworn in you will have an usher assigned to make sure your okay and look after your wellbeing really - all cases have an estimated time to last for example on my second week they stated the case would take 2 weeks and if you could prove you had plans in what would of been my 3rd week (in your case op your exam) you had to tell the usher who would tell the judge who would dismiss you (a lad got dismissed from mine as he had a holiday booked)

Expenses - you get paid public transport back - and mileage but mileage is a shocking rate - they did not pay parking for anyone on mine except the pensioners. So might be worth looking into public transport and saving your petrol and wear and tear on your car.
Expenses 2 - you will get a food allowance each day of £5.71 its up to you if you use the card and the allowance in the court canteen (bleurgh) or you can bring your own or go out for lunch - you can claim the £5.71 back at the end of your duty if you dont use it I did!!

Work expenses - they said generally if your there til 1 they pay a full day but it will depend on your work and how they fill the form in for you

It could be you will not be used at all during the two weeks and it could be you sit on 10 1 day trials - there is a lot of upping and downing as the councils ask the judge for guidance but I didnt read any of my book as once they sent us down then everyones head was just exploding from the case and we all just dumped - its allowed to be discussed with your fellow jury members in the holding room but no one else or out side the holding room!!!

Oh yeah - expect to go through an airport scanner every time you enter the court building! and then scanned over - also they do look in your bag and you empty your pockets so try not to have anything weird inthere - although by the end of the 2nd week of the case we where playing who can have the most random item in their bag as it did get very heavy and horrible.

However as the judge said on the case I sat that its rare to get a case that bad and it did make me and the fellow jurors bond a weird amount as in we all went out for drinks at the end and a few have met up for coffee when the verdict was reported etc.

Any other questions feel free to ask - like I said my duty was the middle of March so not too long ago

Hope this long post has helped in some way

phunkles

Will actually depend on the size of the court to how many people will be there and how the system works.
For example I was in a smaller town one and had to ring up nightly on my first week to find out if i was required the next day - I wasnt.
But that was a court with 2 court rooms.
I have a friend who did jury service in the bigger Court in the City and was required there every day - so she got to sit around reading and watching people knit and didnt get called on a case at all.

Go with an open mind....... its an important part of civic duty and well its enlightening into how other people live.

Editting to add - if your selected onto a jury then you wont be able to revise while your in court - but lunch time (a good hour) and then during breaks you can (we had 2 twenty minute breaks a day on average) plus any random council questioning/guidance time.

And if you are selected on to a jury you will be given the samaritans phone number to ring should you want to discuss the case - ill be honest it did give me sleepless nights and I cried a fair few times over it.

kizkiz

I was selected for a major fraud trial when i did mine. We all filed into court (way more than normal) and were called up. The judge stated that the case could last up to 10 weeks!! and that anyone wishing to not partake could speak to him.
Lots did so, and all were told that their reason was not great, but as long as we got a full jury he didn't mind. This led to a large group stood by the door all hoping that 12 would be found! lol
We did get 12 willing jurors and the others were allowed to go back and got selected for other trials.
The ironic part was that the case collapsed after one week and we were sent home, so all the people complaining about having to take time off work ended up doing longer service. lol

phunkles

and you can ask it to be defered on the 1st day of your duty - just have a word with the usher and explain your circumstances about the exam and how you need revision time.

I defered mine and got a date instantly for a years time/other people there had defered and had approximately 6months since defering so it definately varies.

Once its done you can be called at any time but for 2 years you can decline to do it again
Me personally IF I get called again Ill do it yes it was horrendous but so interesting and like the judge said - its unlikely that a case of that nature would be happening again would we be called again.