12 angry men

Well, there were 17 and not all men, but certainly a few frayed nerves!

Today was the first day of my jury service and what an absolute waste of my time (and taxpayers money).

The 17 of us were told to be at Court for 9am; the usher wasn’t expecting us until 10.30am.

We patiently sat and waited from 9am until 3.50pm, in an un-air conditioned room, with no facilities for snacks or a brew (despite the blurb saying there were vending machines available), with just a couple of breaks for a leg stretch.

Once in court, names were drawn at random and much to my dismay, I made the twelve. The usher made a point of stressing that service is for a MINIMUM of 2 weeks!

During our time in the jurors room, there were a few disgruntled people; similar to me I guess, in that they had given up a days salary for a day of sitting around for £8.53 an hour.

Given that there’s a huge backlog, (new trial dates are currently being set for this time next year) you’d think they’d be keen to crack on with things, rather than have people sitting around doing nothing.

The trial will start properly tomorrow, after we’ve been sworn in (they ran out of time to do that today!) so that’s as much as I can say about it on Blip.

I’m going to take a bit of time out; with jury service, being crazy busy at work and general lethargy, I just don’t feel like I’ve got the time to post or reply to anyone at the moment.

I will be back, once I’ve got a clearer headspace and will endeavour to catch up with you all in any quiet moments in court.
Thank you all so much for the recent stars and comments :-)

DQ x