Has anyone done Jury service and how did you find it?

Juliet27 in 1995 a young girl died after taking just one of these drugs she went into a coma and never recovered. It was a very high profile case at the time, you may remember it. The judge took the view that just one of those drugs given to a person who could've reacted the same was knowingly taking a risk of killing someone. I remember my fellow jurors who were more informed about these sort of cases thought he would get about 6 or 7 years. You can imagine our shocked reaction when the judge announced 18!

I was on jury duy some years ago and bought a smart suit to wear to it . The trial lasted two days and was quite harrowing as one witness was the son of a family the rest of whom had been wiped out in a crash. He was a teenager and it was so sad.
A fews weeks after this my husband was transferred to another city and had a leaving do . A photographer from the local paper came to report on it and there I was wearing the same suit . The reporter came up to my husband and said " Last time I saw your wife she was in court " . I do not know what the others thought.

Hetty58

I was called in my twenties and, like fevertree, I was quite shocked at the ignorance of fellow jurors. I found it pretty boring and read a few books while waiting.

About a decade on, I was called several times in a row - but declined as I was 'breast feeding' (permanently - for years). They gave up in the end!

The second time I served, I remember someone asked the court official what would happen if, say, one of the jurors died in the middle of the trial. He told us they would probably continue with those who were left.
Next day, one of the jurors didn’t appear, so the polis were sent to get her. Seems she was babysitting for her sister who was on night shift, and had been offered extra hours! She said she thought it was okay because ‘the man’ had said it. The sheriff did not agree, and fined her £200 for contempt of court.

I was called a few years ago, much to my surprise, as I thought you had to British (I am on the electoral roll for local elections, not allowed to vote in national elections, which is hugely unfair!).
Interesting to see how the system works, but OMG, a lot of time wasted. Our case was domestic violence, one of the more 'low key' cases, but did involve a child. The child's mother made the most useless witness, so we had to dismiss the count of violence against her, but found the defendant guilty of violence against the child. To my relief we heard, after delivering the verdict, that the defendant had a string of 'previous'. It is quite a responsibility, all you can do is be conscientious and hope you get it right.

I did it a few years ago. It was the murder of a young woman by another young women. I found it upsetting/unsettling. I was thankful that the judge announced that none of the jurors were to be called again to do jury service. On reflection now, I guess it must have been traumatic for us all for the judge to make such a statement.

When I was called for Jury Service I was horrified!! I worried about it for weeks & it ruined my holiday.
However, I did enjoy the experience & the other jurors were really nice people which helped a lot.

I forgot to say that when I served, the judge told us at the outset, that we must not discuss the case with anyone else or reveal what had happened during the day or which case we were on . We were obviously not allowed to post on social media about it; apparently that is not unknown! All well and good. When I got home the first evening I spoke to my other half and told him I couldnt discuss it. He said it was OK he had googled it - he was in Hong Kong at the time - and he proceeded to tell ME what had happened!

I did a three month stint on a long and tedious case which involved looking through reams of files everyday, to decide if a bank manager was part of a money laundering ring.

It was quite difficult, as the charge was "knowing or suspecting" that the laundering was going on.

The judge was very like Les Dawson, which was a plus.

It felt like a huge responsibility, and things got rather fraught between the jurors.