My day as a juror started something like this, I got up at about 7.00am and got ready, left home at about 08.30am to give me enough time to walk to my local train station and catch the 08.49 train to Reading that arrived in Reading Station at approx 09.20 where upon I would arrive at the court at approximately 09.30 hrs leaving me enough time to put my coat and bag away in the lockers provided and have a cup of coffee with the other eleven jurors.

At around 10.00 am we were all called to reception and were met by the usher who always did a head count before leading us up to the court room, all the other people looked they had been placed on pause overnight as when we entered the court room they were all in exactly the same place as when we went home the previous night, we were always the last to enter and the first to leave, mobile phones were not allowed in the court, either you left it in your locker, switched off or placed it in the box on entering the court room, switched off, of course.

We heard from witnesses for the prosecution that basically were all similar accounts but varied in some way as each individual gave their statements of the night in question, we also heard from a pathologist who described the wounds to the victim in great detail accompanied by computer generated images, and then there was a mobile telephone engineer that described in great detail how mobile phones work and how they can be used to locate your approximate position using data from the cell site, we also saw the CCTV images that showed the victim and defendant walking along and had an image expert in the witness box to explain how the figures in the CCTV were identified to being the victim and the defendant, we also saw photo’s of the weapon used in the crime and the actual weapon was shown to us as an exhibit, we also heard from a knife expert who explained in detail where the knife had come from and how he thought it was the murder weapon. The defendant also took to the witness stand and gave his account of the crime and was cross examined by the defense and prosecution and this took about two days, I noticed that there were two guards accompanying him when he was in the witness box.

The Judge took nearly two days to sum up the case and after this we all went to the jury retiring room to deliberate, by now it was Thursday on the fourth week of the trial, at about 4.30pm on this day we all went home and carried on in deliberation the next morning until just before lunch we came to a unanimous decision and it was decided by the court to have lunch and then we would go back to the court room for the verdict.

On entering the court after lunch on that Friday I noticed that it was more full than usual and that there were two guards accompanying the defendant in the dock, there was also what I assumed to be student lawyers present in the court room. The verdict was read out and we stayed for the sentencing and then we all went home and continued on with our lives, that night I watched the TV news with anticipation and saw the case on the TV.

Did you miss part one?

Jury Service Part One

Simon
12 Dec 2010

Source: http://simon-b.org/jury-service-part-two.php

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