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

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.

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!

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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!

Interested to see that others agree with me about the attitudes of some jurors. The accused people in all three the cases we heard were eventually found to be guilty and subsequently we learned that all had previous convictions for similar crimes (assault, theft of a motor vehicle, drug dealing).

Yes nannysprout I was shocked too when I read that sentence. I often watch the Border Force programmes and sentences for drug smuggling, even amounts worth up to a million, only seem to be up to 8 years.

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!

I was called for jury service a few months after my 18th birthday and haven't been called again.
It was an interesting experience all round. I was nervous when it came to my turn to swear in as virtually all the jurors had done so before me and all sworn on the Bible. I knew I couldn't do that, it would have been like perjury to me so I had to ask to affirm. It was clear that it was fairly unusual to all except the clerk and judge as everyone turned to look at me. That was the scariest thing that happened though.
The two cases I served on were what I'd describe as "petty thefts". A fairly young lady who was being tried for shoplifting two cheap children's toys close to Christmas and a man accused of stealing coins from phone boxes. The young woman's case was a sad affair.
I was called into the court for a third "meatier" case but wasn't selected to sit on the jury. I would have liked to have sat on a more interesting case but it is a big responsibility, especially given I was so young.
Having done it once would I want to do it again? No, not really but if I was called and I had to I would but it is likely that I would be medically exempt.

I've been called twice. The first time I was excused as I had just had a baby and wasn't able to get childcare. The second time was in 2002 and I served on one case. It took a week all told . It was a drugs smuggling case and we found the defendant guilty. He was sentenced to 18 years! The judge took the view that the drugs involved could have been taken by someone and killed them so it was tantamount to manslaughter. We were quite shocked by the length of the sentence and were excused any more cases after that. Quite an experience and quite a responsibility! I still have no doubt he was guilty but I was quite shocked at the sentence .

I was on a jury about 30 years ago. It was a sexual assault case. A man was being accused of assaulting his stepdaughter several times. There was no corroborative evidence, just her word against his. He and the mother had been divorced for some time and no accusations had ever been made until they found out that the man was getting married again, It all seemed very flimsy.

We had all sorts on the jury. The chairman insisted on praying everytime we sat down to discuss the case, one of the men said the girl must be telling the truth because she cried (obviously hadn't met many teenage girls) while another man wanted us to find him guilty whatever because he must have done something at sometime! Another lady and I seemed to be the only ones to be able to grasp the difference between gut feelings and reasonable doubt. In the end we found him not guilty on one charge - the girl herself admitted she didn't know if this assault had really happened! We couldn't agree a verdict on any of the others and it went for a retrial. Can't imagine another jury would have managed any better with the paucity of evidence.

I never have and I hope that I never do.

I was called up years ago a very difficult time for me. I was getting a divorce doing a full time degree course at uni. I had to juggle two young children going to school etc. It was the worse time ever for jury service I was really not happy about it. Sitting around wasting precious time and listening to idol gossip. When I had far more important things to be doing.

I served once in my 60s. Glad I had the expert. What concerned me was we were sent to deliberate at lunch time. Two younger people just wanted to say not guilty and go for lunch. They didnt want just sandwiches. It was an assault on a girlfriend. All the men said not guilty. On the train back home another female juror, who was a midwife, thought like me he was guilty.

I HATED my time on jury service. First of all I was summoned at a very bad time in my life. The start date of the jury service clashed with the first anniversary of my father's death, and when I asked to be excused they refused stating it was not an illness. They deferred it for 4 months, but it was still a disaster, as the people were vile! It took 4 months to recoup my travel expenses! I will make any excuse I can to be excused from it next time!

I did jury service about 20 years ago in a small courthouse which had one Crown court and one magistrates court. Only 12 potential jury members turned up on the first Monday so there was not any choice of jurors. I think there were at least 3 cases in the fortnight I was there.

The best bit was one sunny afternoon when the defense barrister was defending his client and a mobile phone started ringing. We jurors all smiled at each other as we had checked all our phones were off before entering the court. The judge was very cross and when the defense barrister retrieved his ringing phone from his robes the judge told him sternly to switch it off.
The next morning the court usher told us that the judge had fined the barrister a day's wages and the barrister had to apologise to the jury for his bad manners.

I was called for jury service in the late 80s/early 90s. I was a civil servant at the time, and as it was this time of year and as I was a post office clerk the timing wasn't great, my boss wasn't best pleased as we would be at our busiest period! She was also informed there was a big/long case that was due to be heard and I could be absent up to xmas
In the event I was disqualified from the jury as it was a fraud case that involved the PO. I was instead put on a minor case that started that afternoon, that one was involving a fracas and minor assault, the judge quickly decided there was no case to answer and threw it out of court. I wasn't called for anything else and was sent back to work on the Wednesday, a complete damp squib! I had been looking forward to it too.

The case we were on was extremely boring And I found it hard not to nod off
Same here RosesAreRed not helped by the fact that one of the jurors took me for a lunchtime drink. I was on two cases, a domestic and a raid on an off-licence and I was grateful not to be on anything more harrowing.

No. Now retired, I have worked for both Magistrates and Crown Court (admin roles). I think I'm probably excluded from Jury Service, I certainly was, while working in the Justice System!

I’m the only one of my family to have been called to serve, about 15 years ago. I found it very interesting. It was a very odd case, involving a young woman who thought she may have been molested by the two young men in court, after being given a date-rape drug by someone else. One of the young men was rather gormless, and had admitted that they had picked up the girl in the other man’s car. She couldn’t remember what happened, and there was no evidence, so I don’t know why the case had gone to court. We acquitted them both, for lack of evidence, but I suspected that the other man had been involved in some form of action with her. The gormless one was nearly in tears when he was found innocent, and I hope he ditched his friendship with the other man.

I’ve been called and served twice. Once at Southwark Crown Court and once at the Old Bailey.
The worst thing was waiting around to be chosen though I met some lovely people while we waited

I have never been called and don't want to be. My DH was on a jury, years ago, in a case of attempted murder. A man had tried to set fire to his girlfriend but fortunately didn't succeed. They found him guilty. DH said it was interesting but unpleasant.