I'm starting mine next week.

Any advice welcomed, especially from the self employed and expenses.

Take a good book/magazine If it was like mine I sat around ages with nothing to do. You could sit their for hours only to be told your not needed or they have pleaded guilty.

Just be prepared to be bored out your brain..
My 'jury service' consisted of a week shut in a canteen at the court.
**** didnt even let me leave early when it was clear I wasnt needed..

it has been said, not by me, that the UK jury system is about being tried by people too stupid to get out of jury service

discuss

Thanks for that iDave – cheeky fecker!

discuss

And why would you want to get out of it? It is a crucial part of one of the best legal systems in the world. I'll bet there's many a citizen in other (less democratic and liberal) countries who'd give anything to be part of a fair and just trial.

Maybe the folk who get out of it in the way you desrcibe, are too selfish to give a sh*t.

I'm away from the 'puter for a while, I'll pick up the advice/abuse later.

Well I got out of it first time but then I had to do it 6 months latter they wouldn't take any excuse 🙁

I did an inquest.

At first I was bored, couldn't care less. By the end, I gave a shit and realised I was surrounded in the jury by "mostly" decent people who also cared.

It was a painful experience but once you're there there's nothing you can do about it so at least have the decency to take it seriously (not necessarily suggesting you won't). It's easy to just give in and agree to get the deliberation over quickly, we had a couple of numbskulls filling up an bourbons, moaning and willing to agree with whatever needed to be said just to get out of there. Forgetting that there's a family in the next room who want to know whether or not their son committed suicide in jail, what contributed and whether more could be done to prevent it… it was quite a distressing but ultimately fulfilling experience.

I was surprised by how annoyed I was when the local paper then reported a completely different verdict to what we came to!!!

as above take plenty of reading material.

yup – take a good book.

Send 'em daaaaawn

Take an iPhone so you can report back to us while its happening.

I did service on a case ten years ago – armed robbery and false imprisonment.

It was unusual in that the accused was actually in prison at the time, and had, it was alleged, committed the crime on weekend release.

Being a notorious criminal, he was actually under surveillance by the police when he went to the robbery, with videotape shown in court. They hadn't quite caught him in the act, though, which was presumably why the whole thing went to court.

A unanimous verdict was required, which I thought would literally take 5 minutes. It ended up taking 12 hours, an overnight hotel stay, and a majority verdict being submitted – two jurors just weren't completely sure.

It was in Liverpool crown court (had to be, really, didn't it). It was really eye-opening how the defending QCs tried to confuse the jury with obfuscatory and mis-leading statements. I knew it was their job to defend their client, but I was surprised at the bare-faced bullshitting they were prepared to do. You could see that it worked, as well.