BiL has been called, he’s self employed and his partner in the business is off for 2 months after a knee replacement. Can he “opt out” as it will basically close his business down ?

Yes – in those circumstances he can have his service deferred – its all on the paperwork he was sent

Tell them you’re off to watch a musical in London. And if they don’t like it, tough! 😉

oops!

Yup, as per TJ you can get it deferred until business partner is back.

What Jeremy said is correct.
As a self employed person myself it would definitely be the ruin of a small business.

I had my first call to jury service deferred as my employer was busy at the time but their was no chance getting out of getting the second call.

wife had a call up last month. looked at the list of reasons why you could opt out. Think being a nun was one of them if hes up for that.

Wife got out as she is a midwife.

Turn up on the first day and sit in the jury waiting room doing your best impression of being obnoxiously mental (banging random things and talking incoherently to yourself)

Seemed to work for a woman who was called at the same time as me, she was sent home within an hour… (may not have been acting)

Cheers chaps. I’ll tell him to dust off his dirty habit.

just turn up the 1st day looking like this and ask if you can blog about the trial….

binners – Member
Tell them you’re off to watch a musical in London. And if they don’t like it, tough!

ha ha, the quotes in that article are ridiculous. he knew what he was doing when he called in sick and should face the consequences when caught imo. his boyfriend though his job was important enough not to go so why should the juror think he can shirk his responsibility.

@mrchrispy – does he need to have a reflection different to his face too?!

On the grounds of his Religious beliefs, so that he can’t swear on the Holy Bible……

They have a workaround for the bible thing these days.

lol didnt notice the reflection thing

Simply tell the clerk you believe all defendants are victims of this police state and its payback time.

Alternatively you’re so right wing, if they’re a bit foreign looking, they’re as good as guilty.

Say your a non-smoker 🙂 or vice a versa.

does he need to have a reflection different to his face too?!

Isn’t that Steve Jobs?

Its not easy. I know a head Teacher who can’t even defer despite Ofstead being due at that time and there being issues he has to talk to them about, yet I got mine defered by saying that there was a prebooked holiday . No worries.
A medical condition that is unpredictable will get you out for good. Something like a bladder problem, something thats common in middle aged men, and needs frequent and unpredictable visits to the toilet, will get an exemption. They don’t ask your doctor. I reckon it might help if you haven’t tried other things first.

I was up for jury selection today, tried the old “letter from my employer”, for a genuinely important reason (big annual Audit at work), but it was a no no. Didn’t get selected anyway, but I’ve to phone back tomorrow night.

I was called last year. I’m self employed and filled in the form as such so didn’t have to do it. Shame as I would have liked to but 2 weeks is way to long to be away from my business.

STWers in being too special to do jury service shocker
🙄

Being adhoc on an international level works a treat.

Can be called across the globe with Only a few hours notice

Was called in once in previous job an it was worst week ever sat bein bored out my skull. – case never actually got to the court !

I did jury service at Bolton Law Courts.

Refused to swear on the Bible and had the court clerk running around trying to find the official non-theist alternative card 8)

Sorry to pi55 on your bonfire but-

I run a small business, appealed and then appealed again.

My position didn’t warrant an excusal. 10 days service which then means you don’t have to serve the in the next five years. You get phone number which you phone the night before to see if your required or not which is good.

On the otherside you see the lack if intelligence and common sense from your fellow jurors. We had a 3 minute power point presentation which was as basic as the process of the court and who sat where. Hardly rocket science but I was amazed and shocked to hear the totally bone questions being asked. It was clear people had’nt paid attention or three minutes so who knows what would have gone on over a course of a few days.

I blotted my copy book my laughing as the charges were being read out. Police dog so and so bit….very formal and this copper was in the dock! Although when I walked into the court to see the accused standing in the dock I thought he looked an evil git. It was interesting to acknowledge the fact of first impressions and how they impact your thought process. I tightened the nut and got back with the programme but I wasn’t in the final selection for service.

I also have had acquaintances who have served on trials which involve horrific evidence and subjected the juror to the undiluted facts of human depravity. That takes more than a shower or two to wash away.

Nice one Muddy Dwarf, good for you.

APF

geoffj – Member

STWers in being too special to do jury service shocker

I would normally agree with that sentiment but I think this may be a case when an exception may be reasonable

Wife got out as she is a midwife.

I’m fairly sure that exemption for healthcare staff has been removed.

Andy

Go see the doc and tell her/him you are suffering from what you think s depression and that you are not in the right frame of mind. You will be given some anti- depressants. If you read the paperwork from the courts service, if you have ever had mental health issues or taken medication for mental health you will be excused, permanently!

Yup many exemptions now gone. I run a single dentist practice, and when i’m away, the practice earns no income, yet everyone else still needs to be paid along with all the other fixed overheads. No longer an exemption, and a dentist “darn sarf” got selected for a fraud case, was kept away from his practice for many months.
Long story short, practice went bust, dentist lost his business, his home, his staff lost their jobs, and his patients lost an excellent dentist, all because the judge wouldn’t see sense and excuse him from what was always going to be a lengthy case and put him on something simpler. Dentist was eventually discharged due to very serious mental health issues as a result of all this, and due to illness of another jury member, the trial collapsed. Geniuses!

When you consider what is spent on bringing these cases to court, why jurors must suffer such drastic financial hardships in the case of the self employed is beyond me.
I am more than happy to do my part in maintaining the jsutice system, I’d just rather not lose my home as a result!

They should only call people who work in the state sector as according to those in the private sector they are workshy layabouts in any case and wouldn’t be missed 😉

In all seriousness would it not be quite a nice idea to have jurors as the “elder statesmen and women” of society helping to give the age group a bit more gravitas and worthwhile role in society? A condition of drawing the state pension would be to serve a stretch as a juror before, say, your 70th birthday. Spin off would be to leave people like the op’s BIL alone.

ratherbeintobago – Member

Wife got out as she is a midwife.

I’m fairly sure that exemption for healthcare staff has been removed.

Andy

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/09/17121921/13

Annex B Persons Excusable as of Right

Parliament

(a) peers and peeresses entitled to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords;

(b) members of the House of Commons;

(c) officers of the House of Lords; and

(d) officers of the House of Commons;

(e) members of the Scottish Parliament;

(f) members of the Scottish Executive;

(g) junior Scottish Ministers;

(h) representatives to the European Parliament;

(i) Members of the National Assembly for Wales;

Public Officials

(j) The Auditor General for Scotland

The Forces

Full-time serving members of –

(a) any of Her Majesty’s naval, military or air forces;

(b) the Woman’s Royal Naval Service;

(c) Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service; or

(d) any Voluntary Aid Detachment serving with the Royal Navy.

Medical and similar professions

The following, if actually practising their profession and registered (whether fully or otherwise), enrolled or certified under the enactments relating to their profession –

(a) medical practitioners;

(b) dentists;

(c) nurses;

(d) midwives;

(e) pharmaceutical chemists; and

(f) veterinary surgeons and veterinary practitioners.

Members of certain religious bodies

In respect of jury service in any criminal proceedings, practising members of religious societies or orders the tenets or beliefs of which are incompatible with jury service.

Ministers of religion

(a) persons in holy orders;

(b) regular ministers of any religious denomination; and

(c) vowed members of any religious order living in a monastery, convent or other religious community.

<edit>

Drillski says that dentist are exempt in scotchland

Last one I did in England (10+ years ago) the judge stated that anyone who had good reason to not serve should approach the bench and speak to him on hearing their name called out. You’d need to have a good reason to do this as you had the entire court, QCs, the accused etc looking at you, so not the place to dick around with some bogus excuse.

One I did in Scotland more recently there was the opportunity to swerve it on the initial summons. Once at the court there was no facility to do this, although one woman did manage to by making a song and dance about something or other.

The Scottish one was an unusally short case – 3 days if that. The English one was a real commitment – over a month and might have been 6 weeks unless my memory is exaggerating it (possible)

Hmm seen it listed as an exemption on a website for england too. I jsut know this chap wasn’t excused, an as a result we all have to have an expensive clause built in to our business continuity insurance costs!
Cant take teh risk you’ll get some geriatric loony court offical/judge!

Obviously you can’t have your business going down the drain, but if anyone here does service, pay particular attention to any “expert witnesses” they bring in who claim to have superior knowledge and skills that either side use to sway the jury. At the moment they do not need to have any sort of qualification that proves their ability.

There was a case of a criminal round here that was tapped in a car planning to knock off another criminal. A forensic linguist I know, and his team, were working on the defence, but the police brought in a showman for the prosecution that swayed the jury into a “guilty” verdict. I’ve seen the technical details of how the defence took the audio recording and the same model of car and recorded the various environmental sounds and mapped the guys physical characteristics that produce his speech and they are saying there is no way the voice was the defendants. They are pushing through parliament to get expert witnesses certified to a certain level. There was also a situation down London of some guy who liked the power trip in court, bought a suit and was fraudulently expert witness in about 12 cases or something that led to guilty verdicts and the whole system is jarred because of that.

Drillski – the exemption for doctors/dentists has definitely gone in England. IIRC it went the thick end of 10 years ago.

(b) the Woman’s Royal Naval Service;

Guidance issued in 2008; WRNS ceased to exist in 1993. Muppets.

Andy

just say you know the defendant. simple!

Obviously you can’t have your business going down the drain, but if anyone here does service, pay particular attention to any “expert witnesses” they bring in who claim to have superior knowledge and skills that either side use to sway the jury. At the moment they do not need to have any sort of qualification that proves their ability.

… but the police brought in a showman for the prosecution that swayed the jury into a “guilty” verdict. I’ve seen the technical details of how the defence took the audio recording and the same model of car and recorded the various environmental sounds and mapped the guys physical characteristics that produce his speech and they are saying there is no way the voice was the defendants.

Of course. An expert witness lists their qualifications, research which keeps him a current expert and work in their witness statement which will be served on defence prior to trial , a failure to demonstrate one is an expert before giving evidence will lead to legal argument andmay lead to the Judge either adding considerable adverse weight to their testimony or indeed refusing to accept themas an expert and thus ruling out their proposed testimony as not evidencemerely conjecture.

Some / a lot of witness experts are there to act as “showman” to explain complicated matters that the jury have no day to day experience in, i.e forensics or the methodology of money laundering, doesn’t mean they’re not experts. Your mates crew and counsel must have been pretty crap if they couldn’t rip holes in the evidence of a “showman ” with their extensive technical research.

@kilo, it was trial by jury. 12 people ‘representative’ of society that were flummoxed by the prosecution expert witness. The defence team said that the evidence he was using to prove his case was flawed. There’s problems from time to time trying to get points across here using text only, with a mature/intelligent audience. Out in the real world how many times do you have conversations with people that don’t grasp simple points because they belong to ideas they haven’t personally learnt about, and have a stubborn mental block to acquiring any new knowledge that doesn’t personally affect them? When these people act as jurors we see the flaws in trial by jury. Still, it’s better than closed courts without a jury.

I also have some concerns about a case with someone close to me who starred as an expert witness to join the jots across a series of offences that was based on the creases in some clothing caught on cctv and presented as a slideshow of still images. Any one of us could have performed his role in court I reckon. The CPS thought they had enough to push the jury into calling guilty on one offence, the rest were to be tied in by a friggin clothing crease! They had no other way of identifying the perp. He was masked up, the police unable to track his whereabouts, no DNA/fingerprints and unable to find the proceeds of the crimes.

To serve on a jury may be an excellent way of figuring out just what society thinks, good and bad. I’d only avoid it if utterly necessary, like Op needs to. People don’t want to be filing excuses up for the future 🙂

I’m going to do my service end of June (24th)…. This IS my deferral date as wife had important exams the first time round.
Guess when her next part of the exam is. It’s the 24th of a certain month….!! Oh well!

I thought about ringing the court, and really pushing them to let me know if the defendant is black or not…..do you think that would have created enough concern to get me off??!! 😉

DrP