jury service help

chris1988uk

I know this is not really the place for this but i need advice as it does effect work and earnings.

I was ment to start jury service this week, spent monday there never got called only had one other case this week called the jury for that and dismissed the rest (including me)
Now the issue is it says jury service can last 2 weeks, my summons form has no timeframe on it and my girlfriend has made me panic as her brother did jury service and he was there for the 2 weeks.

Do i have to attend again on monday or might i be better off phoning the court and asking them.

Johno100

No, you need to attend until you are told you are no longer required and just hope you don't get selected for a major trial on your last day.

Helix

Yes you need to attend until they tell you that you are no longer required. I had to do it last year and got put on a 3.5 week case on the Wednesday of my first week, however the group I started with were all dismissed on the Friday of that week and didn't need to come back again so they only did 1 week.

However at this time they had 3 long running cases going on at once which reduced the number of the cases that could start due to lack of courtrooms. Otherwise I think they would have continued to get called back the second week.

Ectophile

It is normally 2 weeks. It can be more - mine was 3 weeks, minus 1 day bank holiday.

The court will usually tell you if you don't need to turn up. Otherwise, turn up (and claim the expenses). You may find that you turn up, only to be sent home again a couple of hours later when you're not needed. That's common, as they don't always know exactly when trials will start, and the defence may or may not ask for a juror to be replaced with another.

chris1988uk

I know I didn't have to back this week as all the cases were set as 4-5days and they had 3 ongoing cases which ment all the courts were then full.
It confuses me cause when we were dismissed everyone was told to hand in there smartcard and any allowance forms.

bod1467

If you've been asked to hand in such forms then you've been dismissed.

But phone the court to check and confirm.

donnac2558

What happens here is if you are not picked for a jury that day. You phone up each day, there is a number in the letter you get asking you to attend. Its a recorded message saying numbers 0000-111 need to attend next day or 0000-111 do not need to attend the next day. So if not called to attend you just go off to work as usual.

When I was called but never picked, everyone was crapping themselves as a Supergrass trail was coming up and we knew it would last for months.:eek:

pmduk

I was told my case would last 6 weeks. Luckily, for me, the case collapsed in the second week. but I had to turn up daily for the remainder of the fortnight

[Deleted User]

chris1988uk wrote: »

Do I have to attend again on Monday or might I be better off phoning the court and asking them.

Did they not give you a phone number to ring, each evening, to see if you are needed the following day?

[Deleted User]

donnac2558 wrote: »

When I was called but never picked, everyone was crapping themselves as a Supergrass trail was coming up and we knew it would last for months.:eek:

When I did Jury Service, we were all hoping to get a very long trial.

bod1467

If you're in full-time employment, unless you have a very accommodating employer then a long stint of jury service could give a very harsh financial hit ... Jury service remuneration does not pay your normal salary.