So, regardless of whether it does any good or not, I like to vote. If things go against me I can bitch about it not being me that voted in a bunch of useless policy making idiots. If my bunch does get in and things go wrong I can just keep my trap shut. This desire to give me my chance to speak out has some side effects and recently one such effect reared its ugly mug – Jury Service.
Obviously I cannot discuss cases, but then again that will not be a problem because I didn’t actually get on one, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, my story starts some weeks earlier. You tend to pay attention when a court summons drops on your doormat and you tend to utter a few expletives, especially when you start reading just how much your civic duty means to the court system and how much – or in fact little – they are prepared to compensate you for your efforts. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to make a living being a professional juror! Thankfully the nice people in my HR department confirmed that they have much more sympathy with the system and were prepared to cover at least the first 10 days of my ordeal, after that there was every chance I would be on the other side of the jury box on charges of stealing food scraps to feed my family or robbing banks to pay my mortgage.
Somewhat less officially, a week before I was due to attend court, I received a telephone call from somebody asking if I would mind turning up a week later because they ‘had too many already my first week.’ I guess they plan for a certain number of people to claim their hamster is having major heart bypass surgery those weeks and cannot possibly join the fun. Regardless of my request for written confirmation it did not seem forthcoming. Then, on the Friday before I am due to not get reimbursed for using a town centre car park, the letter finally turns up and I have to delay my enforced work holiday a week.
So the big day finally arrives and, like on all special days, you dig out your Sunday best to look smart for the judge, after all you wouldn’t want to look like a criminal would you? Apparently many people turning up for jury service do, especially those that have been caught for it before. I guess once you have sat around for three or four days watching the Jeremy Kyle show and Loose Women a strong silk tie around your neck is not such a good idea. You queue up and hope you have brought the correct documentation with you, try to hide your joke barrister’s wig and for just once in your life try to act like an upstanding member of the community. You are asked to fill in some emergency contact numbers including your next of kin which I guess is in case they cannot cut you from your tie quickly enough by day five. Critically the major piece of documentation you need is a big book and I mean big. War and Peace should cover your first day if you take regular breaks!
After being awarded my all important Jury Restaurant payment card affording me £5.71 per day lunch, which seemed alright until my first coffee cost me £1.25, I took residence in one of the cosy plastic chairs. It was a bit like playing musical chairs without the music with around 120 people all trying to get into the 20 chairs down the wall with windows. Inevitably, small people and women lost out, but the day was young and stealing seats would become one of the sole games of amusement over the coming days, either to get closer to the window, closer to the girl, or further away from the strange person – obviously leading to the ‘getting closer to the girl’ phase to kick off again in a crazy circle of cat and mouse. I didn’t realise the judge could pop up so easily and issue restraining orders, you live and learn.
Mr Blacklock, if you come within 10 seats of this young lady again you will be up in front of me for other reasons!’
Poo! Page 1 of War and Peace ...
Excitement, I am called out to go down to a court room for a case and narrowly miss finding out if Dave is in fact the father of 'Manda’s child'; I suspect not. Surely these people are actors, no normal person would go on these shows would they? We are taken down to a court room and are ushered into some seats next to the jury box. Damn, is it ‘Your Honour’ or ‘Your Lordship’? Circuit judges are ‘Your Honour’ but he’s not running around, lifting weights and doing sit-ups, he must be a High Court Judge; that bench is pretty high! Then disaster strikes, my Lord Honour Judge tells us the case is destined to be a four week trial and anybody who thinks their civic duty cannot stretch that far is going to need a pretty damned good excuse and I haven’t got a hamster. I am selected as a juror and I am compelled to approach the high priest and tell him I have a holiday booked. It’s a tough call the wrath of the Judge or the wrath of the wife and kid, no contest; if he sends me to jail Tina can argue it with him.
‘Well Mr Blacklock, it is only the Lake District so I may ask you to sit on the case.’
After dragging another bunch of jurors away from Jeremy Kyle, the courtroom manages to get a jury together and I am excused. I return to the jury waiting room, count 10 seats and sit down again.
Page 270 of War and Peace...
It’s all too much and I compelled to make a small down payment on another cup of coffee from the Jury Restaurant and I am now fearful I will not be able to afford a sandwich for lunch but as the hours wear on I am tempted by the meal deal and just manage to scrape in under my daily allowance. You can of course add some of you own money, but although my parents lied about Scottish ancestry - I can’t find it - the seed has been sown and I cannot bring myself to use my own money out of principal.
Page 532 of War and Peace, Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. My mind is fuzzy with boredom and I am not sure if I am reading the book still or watching Jeremy. No, Jeremy has finished and Cash in the Attic has just found a priceless vase but dropped it.
‘Would the following people stand by the Jury Lift ... Blacklock ... ‘
Yes, I have been selected for another trial. 15 of us go down to court room 8, the furthest away, and three of us come back having not made the final random selection of 12 but we have had some exercise. A guy I have befriended laughs at me, ‘Not wanted again eh?’ but he hasn’t been selected at all yet. I count 10 seats, which put me next to the strange woman that does not appear to be a stranger to the afternoon Gin session so, like a giant Trivial Pursuit board, I count 10 seats the other way and sit with my head against a filing cabinet that keeps getting banged shut.
Page 797 of War and Peace, I am over half way, thank the Lord I am not a fast reader. It’s late in the day now but apparently there is still a case being argued out down in court room 2 and we may still be called. All sorts of legal issues get addressed prior to members of the jury being sworn in, like what did the defendant actually do? You would think these minor issues would be addressed earlier in the process but stranger situations were yet to come.
Page 1103, and I am now glad I went for the post-2006 paperback edition translated strangely with an additional 250 pages otherwise Nikolenka would already be planning his involvement in the Decembrist revolt as a revolutionary (allegedly) .
‘Would the following people stand by the Jury Lift ... Blacklock ... ‘
Yes, I had made it onto the last case and we were off to court room 6. Surely it was going to be third time lucky? Uhhm, no! The big fella with the red cloak wanted us to let him know if we knew any serving members of the local constabulary before taking a place on the jury. I know a couple, and a few scene of crime investigators to boot. Well a little inside knowledge cannot hurt can it? I approach the Lord High Priest Judge Geezer bench for the second time that day trying to play down my acquaintances but he is not having any of it and I am off the jury.
It’s all over for the day and I am sent home with strict instructions to return to the court at 10:15 the next morning. This is good news because we can get off-peak park and ride tickets to get into town that late which we will be reimbursed for.
Day two in the Big Brother Court House and Iain is trying to work the drinks machine. It’s only 50 pence for a coffee from the machine but my Get Out of Jury Service free card does not work and I have to use hard cash. After exploring the seventeen options for selecting coffee, type of coffee, bean origin, name of bean grower, strength, sugar, milk, cup size and so on, there is a brief pause before the machine happily reports that there are no cups! ‘Please wait ...’ it says whereupon shortly afterwards dispenses my coffee into not one, of the nonexistent cups, but three! Health and safety, I guess, to make sure I don’t burn myself. After all, with all those lawyers about, litigation is rife!
I drink my coffee and flick past page 1475 of my book, I am done. Five aristocratic families, Alexander I, Napoleon and a big invasion circa 1812 but I couldn’t elaborate any more than that, in truth I think I had phased out by page 27. Some might say, ‘Iain you have never really read War and Peace have you?’, and to swear an oath here, because there was little chance of doing it in a court room, I would have to admit that is true.
Legal matters persisted until well past lunch time for the one case that was scheduled to start but then disaster struck – the defendant in the trial copped a plea and we are told we can go home for the day. I spend the remainder of the afternoon carefully framing a photograph, which will be a birthday present for a friend. I do this in the hope it prevents any restraining order ideas she may be having now my awareness levels have been raised by the kindly Judge, but it’s risky a plan that may backfire when she finds out I have been taking pictures of her!
Day three in the Court House and Iain has now completely memorised the World Weather Map on the back of a row of filing cabinets, the precise order of buttons to press to get a simple white coffee with no sugar, how many ceiling tiles there are in the jury room, endured Jeremy, Cash in the Attic, A Place in the Country, Loose Women, various soaps about doctors and used his Get Out of Jury Service free card in the Jurors’ Restaurant on a haute cuisine ham sandwich, packet of crisps and a diet coke (in the hope something in it will keep him awake).
Suddenly the announcement system comes on and we perk up in anticipation of being called to a trial. ‘I’m sorry but there will not be a new case today because the prosecution has no evidence.’ Now, call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t they have buttoned up that whole evidence thing just a little bit before holding up in a court room? ‘I’m sorry m’Lud but we was expecting Mr Crim from 21 Crimsville Close to turn up in court today dressed in black with a face mask and bag marked SWAG on his back but he didn’t, the prosecution rests!’
Guess what, we are sent home. I use the time to practice some ridiculous chords no guitarist really plays while the family are still out and I can’t be prosecuted for crimes against music – not that it’s ever likely to come to trial. Even if it did, I would just say, ‘It weren’t me Gov.’; whereupon the prosecution would crumble and I would walk.
Day four in the Court House and Iain is hopeful that he will get selected for the single new case that is scheduled - assuming the defendant wants to play the game and pretend they are not guilty, the Crown Prosecution Service have at least got a fingerprint, a bit of trace DNA or even a credible witness to play the game with, he doesn’t know any of the cast and crew involved in the blag, and the case does not involve him missing scuba diving in his rained soaked holiday destination of the Lake District. Disaster strikes again however just around lunchtime when he fails to make even the initial selection of jurors. After a short while, to confirm the court has twelve jury members sworn in, the remaining unwashed is told in two groups to go home. Some are to return the following week and the rest told ‘Don’t call us ...’
In a last desperate attempt to see some court action I dive into a seat just four away from the pretty girl but she is too quick for me and already out the door, never to be seen again, quashing my chances of even the restraining order promised to me. In defiance I make one last trip to the Jurors’ Restaurant to use my Get Out of Jury Service Free card and then it is back to the Park and Ride bus.
I waited for the call but it never came and after two weeks I was officially off jury service. If people disagreed with the trial outcomes over those few weeks then I would just like to say no one voted for this useless verdict making idiot so don’t blame me, if they had then maybe, just maybe, I would have kept my trap shut!
The defence rests.