Jury Service

I have just completed nearly two weeks of serving on a Jury at a Crown Court in London. I am unable to identify the court or the trials involved, due to rules on my conduct as a juror, but I can comment on the requirement to serve on juries and the need for juries to make a judgement on the guilt or innocence of someone charged with an offence against the law of the country.

This is the fourth time in the last 10 years that I have been called for Jury service, and the second time that I actually served. Previously, I had work or personal commitments, which prevented me from serving. Any Juror can be summoned at random, to serve at any court in the geographic area that they live in. The restrictions on people serving on juries were relaxed a couple of years ago, to broaden the pool of potential jurors who can be called to serve.  Previously excluded professions such as serving armed forces members, doctors, nurses, police oficers and even members of the clergy and legal professions may serve, as long as they have no connection with the actual court that they are called forward to serve on. Even convicted felons may serve if their offences spent are under the rehabilitation of offenders act, although someone who has received or served a sentence of imprisonment will be excluded.

My experience was of the first five days, of 90 new people being called as a group to serve for up to two weeks (or longer if needed) from a widely disparate group of men and women, aged over 18 and up to and including age 70. As might be expected, there were people from all of the ethnic groups represented in our local community and from a wide range of backgrounds. I was called to serve with 11 others on a trial on the first day, which lasted for five days, that consisted of 7 men and 5 women. We bonded quickly as we went to and from court, interrupted often by being asked to leave the court while points of law were discussed or the admissibility of a particular piece of evidence was challenged. It was intellectually stimulating at times as we listened carefully to the Judge giving us direction, to the advocates for the prosecution and the defence and individual witnesses as they gave their evidence and responded to cross examination. We had physical evidence to consider as well as agreed facts and statements, and other documents. We were briefed and guided by the judge on points of law in the particular case and given an excellent summary by him of the evidence and what we needed to establish in fact to enable to be sure of the evidence on each of the indictments made pointed to the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

It was heavy going at times, and we were not allowed to discuss the evidence until we were sent out to deliberate on the fifth day. But the time spent together wasn't wasted. Our inter-personal relationships developed and we spoke widely about our individual experiences, work, families, context of our lives and inevitably about our personal faith. We included 4 Anglican Christians, 2 Muslims and six people who were either agnostic about faith, or were lapsed in their faith. The thing that delighted me was that people were open and frank about their lives and faith experiences, and twelve strangers became friends, albeit, we will probably never meet each other again in the future. We were united in purpose for the five days, which demonstrated to me, that community is about the people in it, not the bubble that it lives in - we were community with each other, even when we left at the end of each day, to return to our homes and families.

Once we delivered our verdict on the first case, we returned to the pool of jurors, described as 'jurors in waiting' and we didn't expect to serve together again. But 10 of us were selected for a new jury the following week, and again six for a third jury in the same week. I for my part was left waiting, but as a group, we gravitated together when we met, whatever jury we were later allocated too.

My one regret was that yesterday after returning home the Jury manager rang me to say that due to the bank holiday coming up, no new trials were being started and that I could end my Jury service here and now. I agreed to that, but I was than unable to return to court to say good bye to my group of friends. No doubt those who live locally might bump into each other, but it felt like a real loss to me yesterday afternoon. Sadness that new relationships had been severed so abruptly.

What did I learn from this?

First it is a privilege to do my civic duty in this way. The initial resentment on the impingement of my time, disipated in the experience of working together with others of a like mind, but a disparate background, to debate and to share and to laugh together (lots of laughter) and to grow together in ways that I had not expected.

Second - that the criminal justice system isn't perfect, but the Jury provides a check and balance to the enforcement and judiciary to moderate and make an informed, independent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a particular case and at least gives the defendant the opportunity to convince us of their guilt or innocence. It has been going for hundreds of years and is proven to be the best way of dealing with crime and those who commit them.

Third - I have learned more about myself this time around than I expected. This quite (at times) introverted individual, was able to open up and to share my life experience, particularly my faith journey with others I had never met before, and am unlikely to meet again. God puts these opportunities for us to either ignore or to be open to. I thank God that I was receptive and responded.

Ego Trip or Ambition

Inspired by a post by Dame Catherine Wybourne on her blog here I wrote this response to her, than thought it deserved it's own airing.

I suspect that within each of us is the seed of wanting to ‘get on in life’, most certainly when I was younger I wanted to progress in my career. In those days, it was because the Army is a very competitive environment and your progress up the ranks meant the better provision for your family and membership of the elitist Warrant Officer and Sergeants Mess or even the Officers Mess if you were successful enough to earn a Commission. It was also the key to a higher pension and probably not having to work that hard following retirement.

There was such a thing as ‘Rank’ or ‘Position’ envy where some people resented the progress of others, thinking that they didn’t deserve to hold the rank or position that they had achieved. In an environment when the concentration was entirely on team cohesion and effective working as a disciplined fighting force, such dissension was quickly dealt with and those people weeded out or given a role elsewhere to avoid the problems that could arise in a situation where unit cohesion and discipline were key to the success of the unit on operations or training.

In the end, you tire of the relentless pressure to succeed and normally find a niche in which you are comfortable – but the system isn’t content with that. If your lack of ambition is discerned you receive poor performance reports, which can easily lead to negative consequences for your future employment. A for instance would be having to achieve a certain rank by a given year of service or you could be discharged under rules designed to protect the pyramid and maintaining the fitness of the fighting element of the Army or unit.

I eventually reached a point, where I was told that no further progress was possible (brutal honesty) and I looked around for other employment. Strangely enough, I found it in similar employment in one steady rank, with the reserve forces, which held the prospect of continuing employment in one role, in one place and the opportunity to settle down. I grabbed it eagerly. Of course that wasn’t the end of the story, as eventually someone decided that commissioning me and sending me to another job was a good idea, which meant staying put in the same home, and four years later a promotion took me to another post, where I served until my retirement in 2009.

The moral (perhaps) of this story is that ambition can be useful, but it’s also destructive to life and personal relationships, certainly in a highly competitive working environment. If you’re always looking five or 10 years ahead to see where you might be, and at the same time, looking over your shoulder to see who is coming up faster than you and might superced you in time. Such an aggressive approach to life is wearing as I have said, and set backs and disappointments can sour relationships and make you bitter.

But along the way, you learn an enormous amount about yourself and about others. You have choices to make when you lead people. You can nurture and encourage them, and lead them by example, or under the guise of discipline, attempt to drag them in your wake. I met many of both types of leader in my 43 years in the service, and I know that I strove to be the nurturing, encourager, rather than the disciplinarian. You certainly needed discipline, but the key to any organisation is the self discipline and feeling of self-worth of each member. Feeling that they are valued and respected and led by people with integrity and a solid sense of humour.

I do know that I learned that respect for others and having a high sense of integrity was essential to being the type of leader that was needed. And, when eventually I came back to faith, the groundwork was already there for me to move forward and to grow as a Christian.

Do I regret having ambition to succeed. To some extent yes, but without it, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today.

Thoughts on a Day in Canterbury

I spent the best part of yesterday in Canterbury, meeting my SD, attended HC at my old parish and met up with friends from those days. Since my SD took that service it was a double bonus for praying with him twice in the morning, followed by a lovely quiet, soup lunch at his home.

The sad thing was to meet S, a lovely lady, whose been suffering from Alzieimers disease for a year or so. In the month since we last met, she has become more confused and dependent. But brought to church by her daughter, she was able to follow the service with gusto and without the aid of a service book, respond appropriately – the familiar words and rythms haven’t left her, after a lifetime of Christianity.

Sometimes I feel questions arising in my mind about dementia and how God can allow good people to suffer. The reality is that S still knows who she is, but has increasing short term memory issues which are frustrating for her husband, who is himself not well – and is her carer. My younger sister too suffers from this horrible disease and has been in residential care for the past three years – as her husband could no longer cope with her. She doesn’t recognise anyone at all, which has been a painful journey for him and her children.

I know that God isn’t causing the suffering, which is a human condition, which medical science is making strides to help people in the future, but for those suffering now, there is so little hope. In S’s case, her church community have rallied around to help, but their friendship and support can only stretch so far. It appears that S may soon need to be provided with more support in respite residential care, and there is a very good unit in the village that does just that thing. When I was there, I had the privilege to take home communion to them and with prayer and some music, they despite their condition would remember the words of the BCP and the hymns we sang and join in.

My day – some walking about 1/2 mile.

Rating Lovely, mixed with Sad.

Would I do it again – yes, next month in fact.