Just finished my two-week stint and it was probably one of the worst experiences of my life. Beforehand I was dreading not being assigned to a case and having to sit on my arse waiting for two weeks, but now I think that would have been the lesser of two evils!
I won't go into details but suffice to say the case I did in my first week was pretty unpleasant. It wasn't so much the nature of the crime - I've heard much, much worse - but the weight of the responsibility on a jury. When someone commits a violent crime they do their time and come out with a clean slate and free to live among society as normal (even if their crimes have traumatised their victims for life). With sex offenders, you're basically condemning them twice - once with a custodial sentence, and then the 'life sentence' of being on the register. That's what makes it so much more difficult compared to other types of crimes.
The judge told us of course that we had to be 'satisfied' that there was enough evidence to convict the defendant, but I don't think anyone who has a healthy skeptical mind can ever be fully satisfied. There is always that bit of doubt in your mind, and when you hear the cries and wails of the defendant and his family, it goes right through you. I'll never forget it.
The courts don't prepare jurors for that, and there's no guidance for how to cope. When we retired after the guilty verdicts were announced to deliberate further on a third count, some of the jurors were in tears. It was pretty grim. One didn't bother turning up - a young lad for whom the weight of it all was probably too much. He'll no doubt get into a shitload of trouble, but at the time I honestly felt that I'd have rather paid a £1000 fine than go through it. There were a couple of others who made no contribution at all, and just seemed to vote based on the majority. I know it's hard, but there was man's life at stake, FFS. Put a little effort in!
The whole process just eroded what little faith I had in the jury system. The idea of asking 12 strangers who know little about the law to make such a decision just doesn't seem right, nor is it managed or conducted well. When we first retired, the first comment came from an old Daily Mail-reading man about how dysfunctional the victim's family were. I was quick to remind him that they weren't on trial for being dysfunctional, but it makes you think that if all 12 jurors - selected at random - had been of the same mindset as this guy, the jury could have come to a different verdict. Justice is essentially down to chance (of who gets on the jury), and also to how competent the barristers are.
