Hillsborough jury sent out

After 2 years of evidence! How on earth did they pick the jury, can’t imagine many employers being happy with someone taking 2 years off for jury service? And how are they compensated for that time, i.e. could you have a significant dent in your earnings as a result of it?

Link

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/taking-time-off-work

You get unpaid time off from work, then claim back your earnings from the court.

I presume one of the criteria for getting off jury service is it would put undue hardship on your employer or company if you genuinely are irreplaceable.

Actually looks like very fair compensation. Taking 2 years out must have an impact on people’s careers though – skills could easily become out of date if they’re very technical. Would imagine/hope that would also be a reason for being excused though.

Looks bloody awful compensation.

If you were on a 12month case the most you’d be able to claim would be 200 ish x £136ish = 27k.

And with all the short days and legal arguments in camera probably a fair bit less. Anything more than a week or two and I’d have to throw the mother of all sickies.

96 people lost their lives. Do you not think their their families deserve justice, regardless of the financial cost?

Do you not think their their families deserve justice, regardless of the financial cost?

Not really fair for the financial cost to be borne by a few randomly-selected members of the public, though.

96 people lost their lives. Do you not think their their families deserve justice, regardless of the financial cost?

Of course – I’m just curious about how being selected for such a jury would impact the jurors. Aside from having to listen to all the awful details of it for 2 years. Wonder if they get offered counselling as well after particularly bad cases?

clodhopper – Member
96 people lost their lives. Do you not think their their families deserve justice, regardless of the financial cost?

Absolutely, but that cost should be borne by the state. I’d not be in a position to do 2 years at those rates.

96 people lost their lives. Do you not think their their families deserve justice, regardless of the financial cost?

Of course, but not at financial cost of randomly selected punters.

Edit: Beaten to it.

But this is how our justice system works; we can all, as members of society, be called upon to do our civic duty and be part of our judicial process. It’s something that helps make justice fairer and more democratic. Without such a system, we’d need to rely on professional jurors,and I for one really wouldn’t want to see that.

Would you think it was fair for the taxpayer to be burdened with the cost of paying everyone who sits on jury service the equivalent of their normal wages/salary? How would that work for part-time workers, jobseekers, freelancers etc?

“Anything more than a week or two and I’d have to throw the mother of all sickies.”

You’d consider your own gain above justice?

Would there be other compensation/support in cases like this? I would imagine 2 years listening to such harrowing reports on each of these deaths would leave you a different person than at the start of the process.

Not taxable so that’s in the region of £80k

eh?

£27k take home equates to £80k gross? I don’t think so. No where near it. More like £40k gross.

But if you’re getting paid to do something for 2 years, doesn’t that effectively make that your job – i.e. you are a professional juror for 2 years?

Would you think it was fair for the taxpayer to be burdened with the cost of paying everyone who sits on jury service the equivalent of their normal wages/salary? How would that work for part-time workers, jobseekers, freelancers etc?

Would you think it was fair for people to lose their house and struggle to feed their family because the taxpayer wasn’t paying people enough to keep up with their normal monthly outgoings while doing their duty for the justice system?

eh?

£27k take home equates to £80k gross? I don’t think so. No where near it.
It’s not, fat calculator fingers on the phone!

No way would I get two years off work, I’d be laid off after 3 months and come back unemployed, 2 years out of date skills wise, having taken an enormous pay cut!

Was gonna say, you need to get your tax code sorted out 🙂

“Would you think it was fair for people to lose their house and struggle to feed their family because the taxpayer wasn’t paying people enough to keep up with their normal monthly outgoings while doing their duty for the justice system?”

Where do you set a limit? What if a premier league footballer for example, on £100,000+ a week has to do jury service? What if someone has a massive mortgage on a £2 million+ home? I think the amount of recompense has to be set at a fair limit regarding everyone, not just the individual. How much is ‘enough’?

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2527541/Verdict-Jurors-claim-costs-house-cover-payout-doing-civic-duty.html

Problems with your employer
You can complain to an employment tribunal if you’re unreasonably refused time off for jury service.

If you’re sacked because you do jury service you may be able to claim unfair dismissal. However, if your employer asks you to delay jury service and you refuse, you may not be able to claim unfair dismissal.

clodhopper – Member

You’d consider your own gain above justice?

I don’t think anyone is talking about making a gain. But neither should anyone be effectively penalised for sitting on hearings. If I was put in the position of taking a cut in income for 2 years that effectively meant I couldn’t afford my mortgage payment or racked up a heap of debt then I’m sure would impact on my ability to concentrate (impartially!) on the trial!

clodhopper – Member
But this is how our justice system works; we can all, as members of society, be called upon to do our civic duty and be part of our judicial process.

Thats not strictly true.. there are exclusions and viable reason for not doing service. You do have a little say in the call up whether you can commit or not and whether you are reliable.

Anyway, back to the case. 2 years is a very long time, the jury wouldn’t sit everyday in court for that amount of time. They’d be called up when listening to evidence and such, of course there would be conflicting holiday bookings, legal representation clashes and such to consider. So the jury wouldn’t be there day in/day out.

I expect the jury is very tired and quite possibly sanitised to the actual facts by now, it all becoming a normal part of their day. I do wonder how they will adopt back into “work” and whether anyone suffers as a consequence of the time in jury service.

Where do you set a limit? What if a premier league footballer for example, on £100,000+ a week has to do jury service?

Well in that example, 2 years sat on a chair would effectively end his career due to lack of fitness / skill / games etc.

Would you think it was fair for the taxpayer to be burdened with the cost of paying everyone who sits on jury service the equivalent of their normal wages/salary?

Yes, I think it’s entirely fair and there is **** all chance I’d do it for that money. If forced, you just become a terrorist (not literal) and get hoofed out by the others.

You get to say at the start of you service if a long case will unduly inconvenience you.

They have more than enough people willing to do it.

You can complain to an employment tribunal if you’re unreasonably refused time off for jury service.

Fat lot of good that would do you in practice.

It is indeed one problem with our justice system, there are many people who would not be able or willing to take 2 years out. As such the jury is not really representative. I was called for service once for a 3 month case, they asked how many of us (large group maybe 100) would be unable to do it and the majority said so and where excused.

Would you think it was fair for the taxpayer to be burdened with the cost of paying everyone who sits on jury service the equivalent of their normal wages/salary?

Yes, I think it’s entirely fair

+1

Mainly because otherwise you’d be starting the trial with very pissed off jurors worried about debt, which is hardly what you want for a fair trial.

It is indeed one problem with our justice system, there are many people who would not be able or willing to take 2 yarst out.

I thought they went for all judge based jury in complex long cases as it was unreasonable to expect a random lay person to a) suffer that long and b) remember all the details etc.

Where do you set a limit? What if a premier league footballer for example, on £100,000+ a week has to do jury service? What if someone has a massive mortgage on a £2 million+ home? I think the amount of recompense has to be set at a fair limit regarding everyone, not just the individual. How much is ‘enough’?

So it’s ok to have people lose their homes if they happen to be able to afford an expensive one in the first place then?

You’re examples are pretty extreme. The salary they pay up to is c.35k a year, that would leave a lot of people in a difficult situation financially. I know I’d certainly struggle with mortgage payments with that cut, and my home is worth a significant amount less than £2m.

A typical jury service lasts 10 working days and a juror could end up sitting on more than one case.
You can claim for loss of earnings, along with travel and food expenses and other items such as childcare costs.
This must be made after your jury service is over – and no later than three months after completion.

😯
Presumably in a 2 year case they wouldn’t leave you with no income for 2 years before giving you anything back???

Does make you wonder how it takes 2 years, couldn’t they have got it down to say 6 months?

“So it’s ok to have people lose their homes if they happen to be able to afford an expensive one in the first place then?”

They’d be able to sell that property and buy one within their means. They wouldn’t be losing their home. Fair? maybe the individual wouldn’t think so, but I think the system by and large is a pretty good one, and serves greater society very well indeed.

“It is indeed one problem with our justice system, there are many people who would not be able or willing to take 2 years out.”

This is an exceptional case (the longest of it’s kind in British legal history. I imagine the vast majority of cases are relatively much shorter. There doesn’t appear to be any seriously documented evidence that our current system is socially damaging or deemed particularly unfair, so I’d consider the needs of greater society to take precedent over the concerns of a minority of individuals any day, in the pursuit of justice.

Personally, I think the financial cost potentially (we don’t actually know) endured by a very tiny number of people in this case, is far outweighed by the cost borne by those who lost their loved ones at Hillsborough. A perfectly acceptable price to pay, in my opinion.

To the state yes, expecting the jury members to take the financial hit though is a different matter.

They’d be able to sell that property and buy one within their means. They wouldn’t be losing their home. Fair?

No, not by any stretch of the imagination. It’d be less onerous to take the penalty for not serving.

**** that. The Uk justice system should not have to rely on the charity of citizens. It’s unfair to ask (to suggest that someone sell their home is frankly ludicrous in the very least) and could result in jurors wanting to reach a verdict as quickly as possible and possibly be fairly unconcerned at how they get to it. It might be an acceptable price to you, but (as demonstrated) it is not to many others.

Downgrading my family home so that a citizen might get justice for the act of another citizen? Not a chance in hell. If the state wants a trial, the state should damn well pay for a trial.

£27k? Take home?

Given the MoJ EO jobs I was looking at, they are clearly on the wrong side of the fence.

They’d be able to sell that property and buy one within their means. They wouldn’t be losing their home. Fair?

Not by a long shot.

You’re either trolling, or our views on this are so far apart we’re on a different planet, either way I suspect we aren’t going to every come close to seeing eye to eye on this!

It’s a problem – you want impartial jurors so people are judged fairly, but jurors won’t be impartial if they are worried about their finances and just want it to be over.

I haven’t been called for many years – I presume I’m on a list because I explained that I could not leave my business for any length of time or hire a replacement. I do feel a little guilty about that, but also I don’t think asking me to lose my livelihood is a reasonable thing to ask – and it’d certainly make me unlikely to give the case my full and impartial attention no matter how much I tried.

Maths is not my strong point but £228 per day works out at a lot more than £27k per year.

I have been a juror and found the process fascinating! Thankfully it was a long time ago so the compensation matched my income! I would struggle to do 2 years with mortgage and 2 children!

I am quite proud I got the chance to fulfill my civic duty, even though the case was deeply unpleasant:-(