03.12.11
Judged
I’m in the middle of 2 weeks jury service. The first week saw me narrowly miss getting a case that was expected to last 3 weeks. Thankfully I cried “NHS clinic is full for the 3rd week and patients won’t get seen til January if I get that case” and they accepted that.
But then I’m picked for a week long case of assault.
I’m not going to go into any details but blimey it was so banal. Tedious male ego thing that should either have been ignored or dealt with by a handshake and a “that’s the end of it”. And it ended up in court. Actually the second court as they’ve already been through the civil courts with this. What a waste of money and now 2 people’s lives. Two previous decent folk now have criminal records. They weren’t underclass scum, just ordinary folk who over-reacted. Over-reacted quite badly it must be said but still.
So they’ve now blotted their copybooks to say the least. One of them was just about to start his adult life and this is now hanging over him. Just awful.
And how guilty do I feel sitting there and proclaiming them “guilty” knowing that the experience of being dragged through the courts would probably be enough to stop either of them doing anything even remotely dodgy again; and then making it worse for them? Just a hideous feeling. But then they did, quite nastily, beat a bloke up. Sentencing’s not til January though and they are generally decent folk so I’d be surprised if either of them get too long a stretch in choky. I think that’s the right outcome.
Urgh. Wonder what the second week will bring…