Just thought actually what if I use as my excuse "I do not believe in the concept of justice by jury and therefore intend to vote guilty whatever the evidence presented. As a result, you may not find me to fit for being a juror"

Well you can always go with the:
you couldn't convict anyone of anything as you'd be plauged by guilt about what might be a mistake.

There are numerous reasons for exemption from jury duty like include insufficient understanding of English, certain occupations (e.g. students, teachers, armed forces and MPs) and being a member of a closed religious order.

The court will reimburse loss of earnings (currently, no more than £60 per day), travel costs and a subsistence rate.

Another reason could be in case it's a long case that if you are employed and only you can do certain stuff and it needs to be done before that they expect the case to end.... or if you are self employed and your business could be killed due to it are likely to be heard sympathetically.

But some creative Googling will find you loads of reasons

I've been called up twice but got out of it both times due to it causing problems with studies/job.

I've been called up twice as well - never saw the cases through though.

First one was just soon after I had my appendix out so they discharged me from Jury Service (only because I had a hospital appointment)

Second one - we got sworn in and then due to a technicality in law or something the whole jury got thrown off the case. *shrugs*

So I've never actually heard a case yet.

One word of advice though - if you do go to it take a good thick book - there is loads of sitting around and boredom!

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by Jola
One word of advice though - if you do go to it take a good thick book - there is loads of sitting around and boredom!

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I strongly suspected that would be the case.

Actually I could get out of it if its somthing that's likely to go on and on for ages as I am somewhat indispensible in my current job. There are two of us, me and my boss, and he focuses more on strategic stuff - he doesn't really understand the infrastructure that I administrate in detail. So it would get to be a real problem for me to be off for more than two weeks.

Who knows it might be a break from work, but I get the feeling it wont. I mean I _know_ i'm just gonna be worrying about what's going at work all the time anyway.

I suppose it's my civic duty but I can't say i'm all that chuffed...

I can't do it yet but I would love too.

The only thing I would really have against doing it is that it would probably clash with a gig or something... I doubt they'd accept that as a valid reason for not doing it.

I was called up in September but deferred due to work reasons. I now commence it in the morning. I do indeed have concerns with how long I might be doing it, being a freelancer these days and especially as my contact Germany has been asking about availability for work she has in the pipeline.

I've had lots of advice from friends, colleagues and other acquaintances and it seems to come down to this: you are unlikely to end up on a long duration trial unless you want to be. Seems judges are usually pretty sympathetic to people citing professional reasons for not sitting on long trials. Wearing a suit helps, apparently.

One person I know used to work for Herts County Court. His suggestion: When asked if there is any reason you could not discharge your duty as a juror, reply along the lines of "No, because, if they get this far, they're guilty. My mate in the police told me."

However, I think I'll stick with wearing the suit and explaining myself sensibly and reasonably. That and the good book...