What a frustrating use of time

[doddze]

Hi all

I could have said what a waste of time but unfortunately I can't think of a way to improve the system....


I have just finished jury service.... got my summons some time ago and was told to report on Thursday the 10th of November to court... Which I did after clearing my diary of all appointments for two weeks.


day one.... Thursday

tour of court and video
told I would be finished by folowing Friday ie day 7 as people normally start on Monday not Thursday.

Sent to court for a case ..... name not picked home by 1pm.

Day two..... Friday

Waited arounfd for a trail until mid day.... defendent changed plea to guilty so sent home.... and told not to come back until Tuesday..


Day 4 Tuesday (day 3 went to work)

Sworn in on a case at 11.00 am... jury sent out until 4.00pm whilst legal sides talked...

back in court defendant changes plea to guilty... out by 4.15 and then dismissed from jury service.



So after arranging time off work for two weeks.... cancelling appointments... arranging cover I am now in the position of being sent back to work after 4 days after doing nothing...... with nothing to do for the next ten days!!!!!!

I shouldn't be out of pocket but this to me seems to be a a totally disorganised use of time and I feel as if I might as well have not bothered!!!!

Problem is I am not sure how the system could be improved...

It costs about £20,000 per day to run a court... the guy today eventually pleaded guilty to 5 counts of blackmail totalling £750 after not turning up at all yesterday when he should have done.... and still the let him go home on bail pending pre sentence reports and wanted to know when it was convenient for him to report to the local police station..... he had admitted and then we had been instructed to find him guilty FFS!!!

Yours frustrated....


Doddze

[ultimasimon]

I understand your frustration but lets be thankful we actually have a court system in place. What with the 90 day terror lark and the diminishing rights to a 'proper trial', human rights are slowly being exhausted.

If they have told you that they do not require your services, but have released you from their service, are you entitled to claim anything from them?

[doddze]

Its not about the loss of earnings for me as my company still pay me and to be honest the £58 per day max compensation they pay just isn't close anyway...

Just frustrating that the system can't be more eficient thats all..

[Parrot of doom]

Its not deducted from your holiday pay though, is it? So consider it a nice little holiday

[R988]

It's quite simple really, televise every case then have people vote on it like those reality shows, if noone bothers to vote or there is no overwhelming decision either way turn it over to the judge as a tie-breaker.

Couldn't do much worse than the current system and thats what most people watch on tv anyway, charge for voting lines and it may even pay for itself.

[mxdi]

Its different for everyone, I did 2 weeks of jury service, had 3 cases and saw 2 of them through til end, one not guilty (driving offence) and one guilty (drug smuggling)
The other one which was a rape case had a phsyco for a victim (she kept talking to herself and wouldnt listen when they told her to shut up) who started accusing rapist of doing it to someone else too, judge decided we should not have found that out and dismissed us.
Can you tell this was at Luton Court

BTW this was about 10 years ago

>> Edited by mxdi on Tuesday 15th November 21:29

[wedg1e]

mxdi said:

BTW this was about 10 years ago

You're not THAT old, surely...