Last week and this, I was called for jury service; I asked to be released, but that appeal was refused. Here’s my diary of what little service I had to give.
The one time I got as far as the court was the first Wednesday. On the stroke of 10am I joined a short queue that stretched outside the entrance. About half a dozen were ahead of me to go through the search regime. In my previous experience of courts โ mainly magistrates, a couple of times crown, as a newspaper reporter in the early 1990s โ I donโt remember having to go through a knife search. Such is the change in Britain, even before the mid-2010s when acts of terror such as the Bataclan massacre in Paris prompted venues to bring in searches before entry. The dozen or more mainly A4 notices on the door and sides of the entrance brought home why courts have to have such security. Most striking was the number of 352,000 illegal items confiscated in the year 2017-18, whether screwdrivers, knives or other things not allowed in. My only quibble would be that the Ministry of Justice presumably has statistics for years since, which implies that the notice is several years old. More than one notice set out the โzero toleranceโ policy for violence or aggression against staff; altogether odd, that a court building has to set such seemingly basic standards.
Wanded
The check was thorough. On making the detection arch bleep โ I had handed items from my pockets to a table on my left โ I was โwandedโ by one of the security officers, who did a thorough job of asking what was making his wand bleep further, items such as my mobile phone and spectacles case. After a wanding of me from the front and back, I was allowed to pick up my belongings and report to an SIA-badged officer behind a desk. I got ticked off as a juror (and was not asked to produce any ID, or my jurorโs paperwork, as I might have expected from the advice beforehand). A second man directed me upstairs. I climbed, to have a view of the roof of the security box inside the entrance (which was free at least of litter that the unruly might have dropped on it, as you can see at bus stops and the like).
Ahead as the desk officer had told me was the jurorsโ room. I found that I was the second last to arrive for 10.15am as weโd been asked, and found myself sitting to the side of the dozen or so there already, quietly filling in forms. The room and its contents indeed looked like a sixth form common room. Also reminding you of the sixth form was that you had to sign in at a desk. To spell it out: we jurors were the children. On the right beside the wall, a fridge (cleaned out at the end of a week). Ahead of me, a low bookcase with jigsaws and books like in a poor charity shop; a Ruth Rendell and other popular novelists of a generation ago, footballer Michael Owenโs memoir On the Record, a book on mindfulness. Then came the desk for the two officials, and a white fan. Overhead a television set that played a 15-minute video explaining jury service. We jurors sat on chairs at low tables, the bland kind that you see in any school or parish hall.
Affirmation
One of the two women (did I catch that she was a starter herself?) gave us the gen, about no smoking, the restaurantโs hours and the like. Expenses were, she admitted, โa bit tight, itโs public moneyโ. Someone out of my line of sight took issue with claiming back parking. The flustered woman replied: โItโs not an issue Iโm willing to partake in at this moment in time.โ Later while we waited after the video played, the official did call the woman over to discuss childcare costs (which you donโt get, except as part of your maximum claim of ยฃ64.95 a day, half that for half a day, from the state for lost income, which wonโt go far if you have children). What the official called โthis quick videoโ talked us through the courtโs work, with an impeccably high number of black people as judge and lawyers. It recapped what the paperwork beforehand, a 20-page A5 โyour guide to jury serviceโ said. Talking of paperwork, the courts appear much as they were in the 1990s; in other words, not particularly up to date in terms of tech. On giving my name (and showing ID) I got two sheets to fill in, partly for claiming expenses. Did I want to swear an oath (for Christians, โby Almighty Godโ โ the video duly gave a second non-Christian example) or affirm? I wrote โaffirmationโ because I had thought about that. In the 1990s, it stood out the single time as a court reporter I witnessed someone affirm. Times change. Another social change is what the guidance called โdress codeโ or as it put it, โthere is no strict dress code and you can wear clothes youโre comfortable in, such as jeans and a t-shirtโ, although it did add that you cannot wear โvery casual clothing, such as beachwear or anything on your head, unless it is for religious reasonsโ. I had given this some thought too beforehand. I had compromised, neither wearing โcomfortableโ clothes as for leisure, nor a work suit; and I was duly the most formally dressed in the jurorsโ room. Ushers were still in their black robes as I recalled from 30 years before.
A file of a dozen formed by the side room with lockers, and filed out presumably to return to a trial. They sang โhappy birthday to Sharonโ and laughed quietly. All were casually dressed. โPoints of law you got yesterday,โ the usher said to the front of the line, that the usher had printed again. On a signal unseen to me, the jurors went through a door and out of sight. Although I was not to know it until the following Monday, that was as near to actual court business as I would go. The official then spoke to us new jurors. โWe are on a short timeline,โ she said, โI am just going to race through this.โ An odd mix, that hurrying after weโd not had to come in the first two days of our fortnightโs service. We were told to make a note of the four-figure code of the upstairs door to the jurorsโ room; and told to allow for a queue for security at the front. We were not expecting a fire alarm.
It seems remarkable that in most public services, staff are having to dash from job to job, whereas the state demanded two weeks of my service, and required me for only 70 minutes; because at 11.25am the official announced that the case we were due to have had โcrackedโ; we should come back Monday. I had an inkling that I ought to look inside the gents toilets, while I could; they were immaculately clean.
How grateful
On the Friday, I got an email to come back Tuesday, and on the Monday at 4.15pm I got a mail to say I was released; and a further email to thank me, ask me to carry out a survey (to โonlyโ take ten minutes; I ignored it) and asked if I needed emotional support. That was the final jarring note of the paperwork telling jurors how important they are and how grateful the state is, and with what contempt the state wastes jurorsโ time. Itโs only of a piece however with the uninterest that the justice system shows in victims of crime and witnesses. Thatโs not to say the system favours the accused; simply that like a cruise ship or a town hall, the institution above all concerns itself with its own interests, of keeping going from day to day, with as little trouble as possible.
Leisurely misuse
Also jarring was the leisurely misuse of jurors and the acknowledged backlog in crown court cases, already noticeable before covid, and made worse by the pandemicโs lockdowns and social distancing, as aired coincidentally during my service by the annual report of the inspectorate of the Crown Prosecution Service. I got no sense of urgency, that Derby Crown Court was seeking to make a dent in the backlog. However I got so little sight of the inside work of the court, I could not make any informed judgement on how efficient it is. I can only quote Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery from one of his books, about the generalship of the First World War; one cannot help thinking that it could all have been done rather better.
