Jury duty

I’m not asking for a morality lesson here just the facts

I work for a large organisation whose HR policies are surprisingly slack.
I have been summoned to jury duty next week. To get the day off as business leave I just had to show the citation to show to someone from resources and that was that. When I had a question later on about process it was all very relaxed, almost “I don’t really know but don’t worry about it”.
I have an Open University exam in a few weeks and if not called to serve on the jury, I am very tempted to take a few extra days off and say I did. Is this too risky?
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  • aife
    aife Posts: 220
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    Yes , it's fraud.
  • baza52
    baza52 Posts: 3,029
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    edited 9 May 2018 at 11:46PM
    Jury service usualy lasts for 2 weeks and you will be expected to attend every day unless told otherwise by the court. You could get 1 case that lasts 2 weeks or more or have 3 or 4 cases during the same time.
    I have done Jury service 4 times and each time i was there for 2 weeks with the exception of being let go on a thursday on the second week as no new cases were expected to start or finish the following day.

    Take a book as you will be sat there for hours waiting to be allocated a case to sit on.

    If you take more time off who will be paying your wages? You can only claim loss of earnings for the time you serve as a juror.
  • Dox
    Dox Posts: 3,116
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    It's certainly both stupid and immoral. Oh, sorry - you didn't want to hear that, did you?
  • aife
    aife Posts: 220
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    baza52 wrote: »
    Jury service usualy lasts for 2 weeks. You could get 1 case that lasts 2 weeks or more or have 3 or 4 cases during the same time.

    If you take more time off who will be paying your wages? You can only claim loss of earnings for the time you serve as a juror.

    - be funny if the OP ends up with one of those really complicated criminal fraud cases that goes on for a year where the jury has to be sequestered
  • baza52
    baza52 Posts: 3,029
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    aife wrote: »
    - be funny if the OP ends up with one of those really complicated criminal fraud cases that goes on for a year where the jury has to be sequestered

    I got selected for a long fraud case some years back but work didnt want to lose me and ended up having to fax the court/judge to say so and i was dismissed.
    Last time i did Jury service was at Belmarsh and they picked the jury for the Hatton garden safe deposit raid. I was chatting to a guy who got called and it ended up going on for quite a while.
    I would have loved to have been on that case but am glad i was all done in just 2 weeks.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,938
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    Be very clear that even if the response to you was "I don't really know but don't worry about it", and even if your employer is going to pay you as usual while you're on jury duty, your employer will almost certainly require proof of attendance from the court for every day you're there, and the court certainly won't lie!

    If I remember from sorting it out for one of my colleagues, they attended and did their stuff. We paid them as usual, they received statutory expenses for each day they were needed, we deducted those expenses the following month. If there had been any days when they were neither in work nor at court, we'd have deducted a full day's pay.
    Signature removed for peace of mind
  • shortcrust
    shortcrust Posts: 2,697
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    Dribiddi wrote: »
    I’m not asking for a morality lesson here just the facts

    I work for a large organisation whose HR policies are surprisingly slack.
    I have been summoned to jury duty next week. To get the day off as business leave I just had to show the citation to show to someone from resources and that was that. When I had a question later on about process it was all very relaxed, almost “I don’t really know but don’t worry about it”.
    I have an Open University exam in a few weeks and if not called to serve on the jury, I am very tempted to take a few extra days off and say I did. Is this too risky?

    You don't get to choose how people reply to your thread.

    Why not just be a decent person and repay your company's trust with some honesty?
  • Ozzuk
    Ozzuk Posts: 1,884
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    Yes it is too risky. If you aren't needed at court then you should be in work. Simples. any deviation will be an unauthorised absence, why risk your job/career over a few days?

    "Why did you leave your last job" "I decided not to go into work for a few days and lied about why". Next!
  • lulu650
    lulu650 Posts: 1,158
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    You'll have time hanging around waiting to be called, so bring your revision materials in with you and don't get chatting to the others.
    Saving money right, left and centre
  • soolin
    soolin Posts: 72,034
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    Dribiddi wrote: »
    I’m not asking for a morality lesson here just the facts

    I work for a large organisation whose HR policies are surprisingly slack.
    I have been summoned to jury duty next week. To get the day off as business leave I just had to show the citation to show to someone from resources and that was that. When I had a question later on about process it was all very relaxed, almost “I don’t really know but don’t worry about it”.
    I have an Open University exam in a few weeks and if not called to serve on the jury, I am very tempted to take a few extra days off and say I did. Is this too risky?

    I am quite shocked actually to see a question posed on MSE that asks if fraud is acceptable in the workplace.
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