OT Jury service. At 75? Are they serious? Again.

[Jethro_uk]

And yet, over half a century of age, I have never been asked.

(Currently I'm between jobs. I bet the letter hits the mat my first day in my next job ....)

[NY]

I'm in my mid fifties and I was called once about 25 years ago. It was a complete waste of my time: twice I was one of the potential jurors who was not chosen. After the second time, I was allowed to go home - after a further wait. But there were many boring hours sitting in the waiting room until they deigned to call a jury.

I was surprised that although you must declare if you know a defendant, you are not also given a list of witnesses who will be called so you can declare whether you know any of them, on the grounds that if you know a witness, you might be inclined to believe their testimony and to give it more weight that evidence to the contrary from someone else.

I loathe and detest the conscription aspect of jury service. I feel very strongly that being a juror should be a full time profession that you choose to do, not a so-called duty that you cannot evade unless you have a very good excuse and which takes you away from your normal life - and then can't even talk about afterwards except in very general terms.

[newshound]

IIRC if you "make an excuse" (like going on holiday) you get on to a higher priority list. Sounds as though it might be an automatic system that doesn't actually read the letters.

[Bob Eager]

I was asked at the age of 64. I deferred it for 10 months until I was retired, since that involved less hassle than writing a detailed brief for someone to take over part of my job.

[Bob Eager]

In the court I attended, there were four different entrances to the court (judge, accused, jury, public). The legal professionals could use the accessible public entrance, but the jury were not allowed to, for obvious reasons.

[Steve Walker]

As on numerous occassions we have received mail for neighbours and they for us, GPS tracking accuracy is not enough to prove anything.

SteveW

[Bob Minchin]

As soon as you respond to the letter, the next one basically says there are few if any ways to get out of it.

[tabbypurr]

that won't stop courts saying delivery was proven

NT

[Graeme]

In message , Mr Pounder Esquire writes

Royal Mail's job is to deliver to an address, not a name, so the postie did what she is paid to do, and tracking to your address therefore worked perfectly.

[Marland]

Because it is not just a plain old letter , it is a summons from the Court. Do you think people who are summoned to appear in court for other reasons can get away with not doing so on such an easy pretext.

This chap had a reasonable excuse but still had all the hassle of getting the conviction overturned

It seems easy enough to not do it or defer it for various reasons rather than go through the hassle.

GH

[Michael Chare]

I agree. One or two days might be OK so long as it does not clash with something else, but some cases go on for a long time.

Do we really need a jury system, the OJ Simpson trial demonstrated that it does not always work very well?

When I go to foreign countries no one ever says to me that they wished they had our system

[Dave Plowman (News)]

One trial out of how many?

But the US isn't the UK.

However, I do think there can be a problem with juries these days. All to easy to get extra information on the trial via the meja etc.

[Max Demian]

'Mr Knight informed the authorities when he moved in October 2008, but the information was not "properly recorded", the court heard.'

What does that mean? Which "authorities"? The electoral registration ones?

[Jethro_uk]

GPS tracking won't stop a lazy, thick, or CBA postman ...

[ARW]

Of course it is:-)

[Cursitor Doom]

Can you not just permanently disqualify yourself from service? That's what I did.

[Cursitor Doom]

Aren't you a bit old for DIY? Don't get me wrong, I admire your spirit, but I'm your junior by many years but there are plenty of days I struggle to find the will to even get out of bed. Let alone spend the rest of it awake.

[Cursitor Doom]

Maybe the Romanian gang that was supposed to intercept that parcel was in court that day?

[bert]

If a judge decides it's contempt of court then it is contempt of court - end of.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

See above.