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Hi
Anyone managed to get out of doing jury duty. I have just been called up…
They say they will compensate for loss of earnings.
How can they compensate for loss of customers who may go to my competitors.
It also states “you suffer finacial loss- for example, you are self-employed and have to pay someone to substitute for you while you are away.”
So I am supposed to get a fully trained engineer to work for possably 1 day. Then if I get selectected (at random) I need to get this engineer to work for, well who knows 1 day 1 week?Any ideas
Brian
Re: Jury Duty
I had to recently give in to it Brian and attend, but I had managed to dodge it twice by “forgetting” to go.
To be fair the court is usually pretty reasonable and giving them a call to explain the situation will often get you out of it depending on how many actually attend on the day.
K.
Re: Jury Duty
I managed to be excused last year by writing to them and explaining that attending court for up to 2 weeks would cause financial hardship. I also stated that as I do emergency call outs for estate agents (which I do ) I could permanently loose a lot business if I were unavailable, They accepted this but stated I was excused on this occasion only and could be called again in the future.
Good luck mate
Goose
Re: Jury Duty
Cheers Ken, Goose
I will call them on Monday and try the hardship angle ( which is genuine anyway). Tax and VAT due that month!!!!
Why did I never get a call from them when I worked for Hoover??!!
Brian
Re: Jury Duty
I know what you mean Brian, I have a couple of mates who who have been called, But as they are employed they thought it was great, 2 weeks off work on full pay, Cant be bad. I think self employed sole traders should be exempt.
GooseRe: Jury Duty
Dam, Just been called again and this time I,am even more determined to avoid it, The Maximum daily allowances listed are:
Up to and including, 4 hours: £31.56 Per day (First 10 days of Service)
More than 4 Hours: £63.12 Per day
Mileage: 30p Per Mile 😡The are seriously taking the pish, how do they expect a sole trader to accept losses like this plus a huge amount of loss of goodwill? Having re read the original post and if I cant get it deferred I am also going to forget to Go, Just like ken.
My second thought was go and shoplift a bar of chocolate, pay a small fine get a criminal record and then be exempt from jury service for the rest of my life 😀
Has any one else managed to avoid it more than once?
Goose
Re: Jury Duty
I managed to get to the third call IIRC, then I had to go.
Then I got hacked off by the bleeding heart liberals that let the crazy drug dealer off. 😕
K.
Re: Jury Duty
I bet most of us on here are willing enough to go on holiday and leave our customers to wait or find someone else. It can sometimes actually help your reputation if they get somoene who does a bad job or is more expensive. I’ve never been asked but I would be happy enough to do jury duty.
Re: Jury Duty
I don’t get your point…
If I go on holiday I know exactly how long for and can book calls accordingly. Jury duty is open ended.
Re: Jury Duty
Thats my problem Phil I have only had 3 holidays in the last 10 years,So If I can’t afford holidays I certainly can’t afford 2 weeks off stuck in a court room.
Goose
Re: Jury Duty
And to top off those costs, the guy/girl your going to do the jury service on if convicted will get 3 square meals a day, sat TV, central heating, etc etc etc, and guess who thats also gonna cost, yes YOU. 😉
Re: Jury Duty
It can sometimes actually help your reputation if they get somoene who does a bad job or is more expensive
Possibly but how do you ever know. The odd customer that might comment on it next time you see them is nothing to the many jobs lost.
Particularly if they are new customers.Phidom. am I ok to pass your details on if I get called up?
🙂
Re: Jury Duty
I’ve done my bit on jury service (Winchester Crown Court) One GBH case lasted 4 days = defendant acquitted. 2nd case (same jury service stint) took 3 days….shoplifter…..guilty!
That lot took 2 whole weeks of my precious time and whilst I felt it my duty to attend I only got a total of £142 in claimable allowances for my bother.
That was back in 2001 by the way, since then I’ve been called for jury service (2005 I think?) and claimed the usual excuse relating to being self-employed and serious loss of earning issues etc etc. My written excuses on their standard form were readily accepted, no problem.
In my experience and if you accept to do jury service, when you get to your Crown Court to be selected by the officials. They give everyone a ‘summary’ of the likely cases they ‘volunteer’ to serve on and give a likely time period as to how long the respective cases will take to go through the court system. For example: murder cases can take anything up to 5-6 weeks to conclude whereas simple GBH or ABH cases a day or two.
Once you ‘volunteer’ to be on a particular jury and enter the courtroom then the ‘defendant’ has the chance to scan the jury and reject who he/she wishes not to be on the jury and therefore you are rejected and returned to the selection official once again.
So in theory, if you dress up like a red indian or paint your face green and claim your from the planet Mars the chances are they will thank you for attending and sign you off!
Re: Jury Duty
Managed to blag my way out of it again with a carefully worded letter, But worried about what Ken said that he managed to avoid it twice But the third time he had to attend. I will have to think up a new ploy for then next time.
GooseRe: Jury Duty
I was called up for it about 3 years ago, I just ignored the letter, I never heard another word about it, If you don’t reply what can they do, I’m sure they don’t follow up every non reply to their letters.
Someone I knew got his wife to say he had left home and had no forwarding address, he never attended.
My wife was called up and did 10 weeks at the Old Baily, that’s why I blanked it.
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