Bit confused.

Got a summons in August which I deferred.

Got new date for November which I have to do because you can’t defer twice.

Got the papers through today requiring me to report to Leeds Crown court in November. Which is fine except I live in Hampshire.

Anyone else been called to attend 250 miles from home?!

What address do they have you registered at?
Ring them … they are very helpful

You lucky sod. I’d love to get picked for jury service.

Well the letter made its way to my home – in Hampshire.

There’s a helpful map of Leeds though.

I’m just wondering if they are technically allowed to do this?

You lucky sod. I’d love to get picked for jury service.

Me too. Is this weird?

The idea of sitting on a jury really interests me. I got called once, but didn’t yet have a British passport, so had to decline.

I very much doubt that 250 miles would be considered a reasonable distance – especially so when the crown will have to reimburse you for out of pocket expenses.

Of course if you made the effort to just rock up on the first day and then disclosed this fact just as you were being sworn in, I’m pretty certain that any judge *would dismiss you, with an apology…. and of course you will have discharged your responsibility..

*Possibly.

Would gladly let you take my place!

Bregante that’s genius (if slightly risky?)

Would gladly let you take my place!

Awaits headline in the Yorkshire Post

Ha ha

Think I’m just gonna write and ask to be excused on the basis it’s a 4hour commute

It is supposed to be as close as possible to where you live.

There is a number to call on the .gov website

0300 456 1024

Or email

jurysummoning@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

I very much doubt that 250 miles would be considered a reasonable distance

When I was doing Jury service one of my fellow jurors was doing it for the 6th or 7th time and for one of his stints he was doing the service in Glasgow but had to travel from Germany.

Having moaned about how often he’d had to do it our case wound up on a weds morning and there was another raffle (of us plus all the people summoned earlier in the week who hadn’t been picked for trials) for jurors to sit on another case that was starting and he got picked again.

I’d love to get picked for jury service.

I did jury service at the beginning of the month.

It was a domestic violence plus rape case.

Little physical evidence beyond patterns of behaviour, hearsay etc.

Two individuals each with their own sad tale to tell.

No real hope of ‘making things better’ with a verdict either way. The accused would end up with a long sentence and being on the sex offenders register, the victim had already suffered a lot during the period of time she was being abused and whilst a ‘guilty’ would have been a victory of sorts the damage had largely been done.

It was one of the most difficult 10 days of my life.

Hearing a lot of distressing, detailed, evidence and then spending more than 9 hours over 3 days in a jury room and laying awake thinking about it at night.

I was quite looking forward to it beforehand.

I’d *really* rather not do it again.

Still think about the bloke spending at least 4 years in prison as a result of my decision during his trial (yes, I know it’s not solely my decision and he chose to commit the crime but still).

I did it a while ago, managed to get out of the first case I got called for because the judge asked if we knew anyone in the court – my neighbour was sat there as part of the prosecution team, glad too as the case went on for 6 months. I then got called to another case a day later which only lasted a few days but it was a really horrible assault, and as above there were no winners in it and I haven’t got any desire to be called again.

Did it last summer.

The cases were grim as per wwaswas comment above. The first was pretty much one word against another. The details of the evidence was incredibly distressing.

The second was so crazy I couldn’t believe the Police and CPS even thought there was a case.

The legal staff were incredibly pleasant and certainly made you feel your time on a jury was appreciated by the system.

The admin side was utterly appalling. Person running the jurors office was an officious little troll with a clipboard and a bad attitude. I can quite imagine a screw up from the admin side of things.

It was an experience, not one I fancy doing again.

I have mates who have done it who’ve had to deal with people coming out with the “he just looks guilty”/”he reminds of someone I know who was a ne’er do well”/”he must have done it- there’s no smoke without fire” etc.

Don’t reckon I’m gonna enjoy dealing with that.

Did it a couple of years ago at Winchester CC. Interesting experience and ended up as foreman of the jury. Suggest taking a good book with you as there is a lot of waiting around while points of law are discussed.
Was your original summons also Leesds? They told us the jury pool could get loaned out to other courts but only within the same circuit (Salisbury and Southampton I think).
As above ring them, everyone very pleasant and helpful. Got paid bike mileage as well so Leeds could net you a good profit

No originally Winchester, which is 750 yards from my house.

Liking the bike mileage idea though.

I’ll call tomorrow and see that the craic is.

I was the foreman of a jury. Petty theft of a rug, the accused’s story collapsed when her mother gave evidence. Accused was guilty, never found out the sentence as I think that she had been convicted of other crimes. Judge not happy as the cost of the trial was counted in thousands and the stolen rug was less than £50

As a side note – all the people who ended up as foremen of you’re jury – was it because there was some sort of nomination and vote? Or did you break the awkward silence by say – “well I suppose we should elect a foreman” and everyone else saying “congratulations” 🙂

My mum did it a while ago and she told me the court staff can be awkward.

They all got a lunch allowance and one lad on the jury went about 76p over his allowance and they came and looked for him to get the money. They didn’t even wait till the end of the day.

On mums case were a couple of really famous people, one being a TV presenter 😯

Believe it or not – I was the youngest

Im exempt and im very glad for it. It must be sometimes simply horrifying.

I just ignored it last time I got the letter. was the 3rd time, tbh they can piss off.

I’ve done it twice now.

First time, waiting around 2 days to win the raffle, didn’t get picked, got sent home.

Second time, after 1.5 days of waiting around, had a sexual assault case in which all of the evidence seemed to suggest the woman and her mates had made it all up. Not helped by the prosecutor barrister not being able to work the CCTV DVD play (as if he hadn’t even watched it).

Didn’t take us long to acquit. That was Thursday afternoon and they sent us home not to return the following week.

Neither was 250 miles away though!

Been there, done it. Boring. (Wasn’t working at the time so no issues)

Start next Monday, not really looking forward to it, pain in the arse to get to with no car available, 35 miles away by bus and train, have to set off at 730 to get there on time. Hope to get stood down.

Just go in with a t-shirt on that says “racist”

Also, don’t do what I advise – as it’s probably illegal, immoral or unsound.

MacCruiskeen – I was foreman, no one else was prepared to stand up at the end and announce the verdict. If I’d said no I think we’d have had to draw straws.

We were offered choice to return to court for sentencing. About 2/3rds of the Jury did.

I found it helped, despite the convicted mans family being there. The judge summed up in about 10 sentences why I’d found him guilty. The CPS had failed to collect a victim impact statement which I think was a shame but none of her family were there from what I saw.

Like some others I’d been looking forward to doing it all my life but the reality was a big disappointment. When eventually I got picked, at the start of week two, it was an accusal of improper touching by a neighbour against the complainant’s child. The accused was a family friend and a bit of a scallywag who lived a DSS lifestyle in Blackpool and I had a strong feeling the parents of the wronged child were embarrassed that the case had gone as far as it had; it felt like a scalp for the Police and the CPS. Of the jury, three of us were not convinced at all by the evidence, which was a mess. We argued about the case for all of the Thursday afternoon and I had a sleepless night going over it all in my mind. By Friday morning we three disagreers had succeeded in convincing ourselves that the accused was guilty, faced with the prospect of re-convening on Monday morning for more tedious discussion. The judge must have sensed our doubt because in summing up he said: “Don’t worry, he won’t go to prison, I’m going to commission all kinds of psychological and social reports then decide in a few months what to do.”

My mate was foreman, said it made him lose all faith in jury decisions. It seemed whenever he raised a point of view, everyone agreed with him, so it effectively became his decision guilty/not as the rest didn’t seem to be able to think for themselves. In considering verdict, a couple of the folks just said they’d go with whatever as long as it meant they could get a result and get away early.

A sure-fire way of avoiding almost all of jury service:

– Don’t respond to the first summons
– Don’t respond to the second one either, even though it threatens consequences
– About 1 week before you’re due to attend, send your response
– Turn up on day 1 and your name won’t be on any of their lists, so you won’t be called
– They’ll note you down as having attended, and if you submit your expenses for the day this also acts as your proof of attendance.
– After day 1 they send you home saying call this number every day to see if we need you. As you don’t appear on any of their lists, they won’t.

Worked for me, morally vacant for sure, but I avoided a very nasty pikey murder as a result.

My mate was foreman, said it made him lose all faith in jury decisions.

We were lucky in that, we had a couple of people on the first panel that just didn’t get what only considering the presented evidence meant.

We spent hours because one bloke “felt” the defendant was guilty because drugs were mentioned and druggies are always guilty and one of the women on the panel kept suggesting that in such cases they’re always guilty, because men do these things.

Had to be a unanimous verdict so spent ages asking where the evidence for the opinions was and after half a day it finally got through what evidence means.

Certainly made me realise that not all people are capable of objective thought, even the supposedly intelligent – the bloke who didn’t get evidence was supposed to be a GP 🙂

As mentioned a few times by other posters Jury service is an interesting experience but you will lose all faith in trial by Jury. Your fellow jury members will either go along with the flow to get out as soon as possible or make a decision as soon as they see the defendant and then have selective hearing when it comes to the rest of the evidence.
The case I sat certainly wasn’t clear cut and I was the only one prepared to think it through and not immediately jump to a guilty verdict based on the fact the defendant was already in prison!

Yes phone them up, or email them or whatever.
The ‘computer’ has probably made a mistake.
They pay expenses but the reimbursement is usually capped.
Obviously travelling 500miles a day would be a bit nuts they would need to confirm what they would pay for your overnight accommodation for the two weeks (quite often released early but practically you would need to book the accomodation in advance).

Of course if you made the effort to just rock up on the first day and then disclosed this fact just as you were being sworn in, I’m pretty certain that any judge *would dismiss you, with an apology…. and of course you will have discharged your responsibility..

*Possibly.
You don’t just walk into a courtroom though.
You sit in a room for hours/days waiting to be called to a courtroom. They call more people than they need so you might be sent back to the holding room anyway, but if you are drawn for the court then you are sworn in by the judge, if for some reason the judge doesn’t swear you in then you get sent back to the holding room.

We were lucky in that, we had a couple of people on the first panel that just didn’t get what only considering the presented evidence meant.

I’d say all but 3 of the people on my jury couldn’t really tell the difference between ‘Evidence’ and a leading question. In fact they hadn’t realised that the Defence hadn’t presented any evidence at all. They’d just asked questions that were statements with the words “…. isn’t it?” at the end to which the witnesses would always answer ‘no’.

But a shambolic prosecution from a guy presented the case as if he’d just fallen out of bed and slick spiv defense meant the jurors remembered the questions more than the answers.

At the risk of being a grumpy sod, may I just remind contributors to this thread that discussion of jury deliberations should not take place, even after the trial has ended, at the risk of being found in contempt of court:

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/discussing-the-trial

I did it about six years ago. Three and a half weeks evidence and two and a half days of deliberation. Quite opposite to the other comments on here it was a really positive and interesting experience. Everyone took it seriously, we went through every piece of evidence for both prosecution and defense, weighed up their importance and came to a unanimous not guilty verdict. We were praised by the judge for our studious approach to the deliberation (purely based on the time that we took, none of the judges or staff have access to the deliberation room). Almost everyone took it very seriously, the less serious just kept quiet for the most part. No one made any “he looks a bit shifty” type comments. I’d like to think that if I were in the dock then people would take jury service that seriously; it’s one of the most important institutions in the free world.

By Friday morning we three disagreers had succeeded in convincing ourselves that the accused was guilty, faced with the prospect of re-convening on Monday morning for more tedious discussion.

Great, so you convinced yourself because you didn’t want to reconvene and there was reasonable doubt in regards to the evidence.

Jury’s need to be replaced with a pool of professional jurors.

Jury’s need to be replaced with a pool of professional jurors.

That basically makes it ‘Trial by Judge’.
Having done jury service I am under no illusions as to thinking it is a perfect process, however, one does have to consider the imperfections of the alternative options too.
Some countries have disbanded their juries and do only trials by judge now.