Mark Rowe writes: next Monday I am due to begin two weeks of jury service. Here are some of my thoughts beforehand.
The jury is one of the most mysterious and yet familiar and abiding groups in our society, that under contempt of court law we’re forbidden to hear about. Although presumably I can share if the curtains are dusty and the coffee tastes bad? Those who I have told I have been called for jury duty usually remark that they hope I will have a ‘good’ case; that is, something interesting, such as a murder (or a months-long fraud trial, they suggest more mischievously). I began by feeling annoyed that I had been called, and applied to be excused. I sent my paperwork in the post to Bradford, and got a refusal back. Already, though, I had accepted jury service; it would be a free view behind the scenes, even though I would still have to do my paid work and bring out the December edition of Professional Security Magazine. I saw courts regularly from 1990 to 1993 as a newspaper reporter; mainly magistrates in Wiltshire, and occasionally murder cases at Bristol Crown Court. I got to know both the solemn ritual and through sheer routine how anything can become taken for granted.
Like a cruise ship
I anticipate learning, besides seeing parts of courts that only a juror can. Courtesy of Mitie I did get to see inside the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, at an evening event early this year. The rooms, corridors and floors in public and not reminded me of a cruise ship – the Old Bailey does have some parts below ground, which can be confusing when orienting yourself. Presumably any crown court is the same. The basement cells keep the accused when brought on remand from London prisons – some distance and taking some time, making a court day a long one from the time you set off, whether juror, accused or usher or security officer working the metal detection arch at the entrance. The cells are basic – no windows, barest furnishings, maybe an apple, free Metro newspaper and bits of graffiti left behind; the court room, grand by comparison, has an element of theatre, like the Houses of Parliament. The waiting rooms are to be endured, like any hospital’s or dentist’s.
What of the security of a court building? When I reported on courts more than 30 years ago, you could walk in off the street; now you have to be checked for weapons, a reflection of wider crime trends. What state is criminal justice in? Presumably in a state, like so many British institutions starved of money and direction, vainly trying to keep up with the technological developments of wider society?
How are jurors treated? With cold politeness, I assume. Partly because the paid, regular staff there may feel like shop workers forever filling shelves that customers empty, making more work: the job would be fine, if it were not for the visitors spoiling it. Court workers, whatever their place in the pecking order from judge to doorman, have their own interests; for all the fine talk about caring for victims of crime, everyone else, witnesses, police, the accused alike, are passing through; outsiders. I will look out for the tone of how staff treat jurors, who are volunteering their time as a duty to the state.
State contempt for volunteers
Consider how volunteering keeps the country going, routinely (blood donations, charity shops, the hospice movement) or in a time of crisis such as covid – consider how the state asked for volunteers to carry out small tasks in mid-2020, hundreds of thousands came forward online, and the state did no more about it. That was evidence of how the state tends to hold volunteers in contempt. Consider that every public service has had since the 2010s its staffing cut to the bare, even dangerous minimum; even the emergency services, and in prisons. Yet ask around those who have done jury service and many have barely seen the inside of a court in their two weeks, or never reached an actual jury; the state takes for granted that it can draw on far more citizens than it needs for juries. Meanwhile the allowances for travel and eating while doing jury service are ungenerous; and if you are on Universal Credit, you do not have even a few pound to spend unthinkingly, before getting expenses back. Another bad sign of how the state in general and courts in particular muck citizens about was an email ten days before my service is due to start, that gave the unwelcome news that I might not go to my local crown court but to another court in the county further away.
