Jury service - Day 3

Chaos this morning as I tried to make my way to court. A fire alert on the Central line rendered my route to court unusable, and left me with a succession of busses as my only alternative. Fortunately, anyone coming to court by public means is in the same predicament, so my barely late arrival was matched by almost half the jurors, and probable an equal number of court officials, defendants, witnesses and the like. Nothing like thinking you're going to be fined for contempt of court to crank up the anxiety, though.

We were finally led into court at midday, only to discover that, instead of winding up, the Crown was proceeding to call a further witness. After a break for lunch, we finally heard the Crown close their case, and then a surprise; the Defence called their Defendant. This only happens in about half of all Crown court trials in the UK, as the Defendant is not required to present any defence at all; it is the Crown's responsibilty to make their case. Having the Defence call their Defendant immediately adds days to the trial, as this will open the floodgates to all sorts of character and eye witnesses for the Defence, and all the concommittant cross questing by the Crown. No early result here, I'm afraid.

Jury service - Day 2

It was a full day in court today. We were called into court bang on 10am, and almost lost our lunch break as we ended the morning session late at 1.15pm, on the sufferance of one of the expert witnesses. It is a little known fillip of the judicial process in the Crown courts that any morning session that can't reasonably be stopped for lunch by 1.30pm - due to late running or prior commitments - runs straight on into the afternoon session, and everyone involved just has to hope they don't faint as the day wears on!

Unlike yesterday, when we were simply told to ensure that our mobile phones were turned off, we were asked to hand them in today, and they were locked away in a little wall safe in the jury room. I have no idea why the change in procedure; perhaps the omission yesterday was due to time constraints. Otherwise, it was more of the same as yesterday. My fellow jurors commented on the length of the morning session as we went down to lunch, which puzzled me a little, as we had only been in session for just over 3 hours. Surely that isn't a particularly long period of time to sit still and concentrate? I, for one, found the whole affair too fascinating to notice the time pass.

The afternoon session ran much shorter, as there were prior appointments to be kept by the judge and barristers, and we were happily dismissed at 3.30pm, only having to return tomorrow at 10.30am; a most reasonable hour! The way the trial is going, it looks like we'll probably enter deliberation tomorrow, but how long it then takes us to reach a verdict is anyone's guess. Hopefully I'll have something truly interesting to write this time tomorrow evening.

Note to self: have some breakfast tomorrow. Having the entire court stop and look your way as the rumbling of your - admittedly anxious rather than empty - stomach echoes through the room is less than pleasant.

Jury service - Day 1

I've spent a fair amount of time preparing for my jury service by familiarising myself with court procedure, reading what little I could find about the experience of other jurors and even watching the two recent trial documentaries on TV. So I was completely unsurprised by the sheer amount of waiting involved. I arrived just before 9.15 as instructed, and waited. Around 9.45, they registered all jurors, and explained a little of the administration involved with jury service (expense claims and lunch cards and the such) and we got to watch a brief video detailing some of the forthcoming attractions. Then we waited. And waited. At some point in the morning, one batch of 15 names was called out for a jury selection, and just before lunch, another. That was 30 out of the 100 or so people gathered who actually did anything the entire morning. The rest of us? We waited, of course.

It sounds far more dreary than it actually was, though. There was a choice of waiting area, depending on whether you wanted conversation or quiet - I elected to go where it was cool, which happened to be the quiet room - and there was a canteen for meals or a variety of snacks. Being prepared, I had a selection of books to get through, as well as my DS, and managed to polish off the book I'd started en route to the courts¹ that morning by lunchtime.

Not very long after lunch, there was another round of juror calls, and this time my name was among those called. Fifteen of us were led in, and I was one of the twelve who stayed to decide the case. We were dismissed just after 4 and told to return for 10 tomorrow to continue. Those are hours I could get used to!

Obviously, there'll be nothing here about any of the cases I sit on until the cases are closed, but I can talk about generalities in the interim. It was interesting that we were provided with a pencil and a single A4 sheet of paper on which to take notes. I would seriously have thought we'd get pens and pads. As the building is not purpose-built, the courtroom we're in is fairly small and not at all what you might expect from television drama, but it seems to serve its purpose well enough. We're sat almost directly behind the court stenographer, who is actually in charge of recording the proceedings not by writing or typing anything, but by managing the tape (yes, TAPE) recording of the trial. It was a little distracting to have the flickering light of the sound level indicators flashing away in front of us, I have to say. The seats are a little too far away from the table to take notes comfortably, which didn't seem to bother my fellow jurors unduly, since they weren't taking all that many notes, content to sit back and watch the trial unfold. I, on the other hand, ran out of paper. Probably unnecessary, all that note-taking, but I figure I'd rather have it all down than trust my recollection of testimony. I'll definitely need to ensure I have more than a single sheet for tomorrow's full day.

I never really got to talk to anyone. It seems a little moot to chat to random jurors in advance, but I get the sense from the jurors who've been at court a few days already that once you've been through one trial, the first-name basis will act as an opening for conversation over the next few weeks. How much fun that will be is something else entirely!


¹ Snaresbrook, which we were told is the largest single court complex in Europe, and also the old Royal Wanstead Orphanage, then School

Jury service begins today

I've yet to see whether being away from my desk and having a life - of sorts - increases or decreases the amount of blogging I do. Regardless, I'll be away from instant email access for most of the next two weeks, and if you see nothing here for that duration, you'll know why.

Let the reading commence!

Snip-snip

A thing of much beauty:


Some more beauty, in the same vein:


And the cosmic balance is restored:

I'm in!

I just received confirmation from the Home Office that my application for naturalisation has been accepted, and I will be ceremonially sworn in shortly¹. Result!

¹ 26^th March, in fact.

Gamer motivation

Sometimes you just need that little something to go the extra mile.

On my wall:

Interactive fiction

Although not quite what I was looking for, these text-based multiplayer roleplaying games look pretty interesting. More after I've tried a few.