The middle classes used to be highly skilled at avoiding jury service – so much so that juries, it was felt, were unrepresentative of society at large, consisting largely of the unemployed and housewives.

The reforms brought into effect three years ago under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 tightened the law to end exemptions from jury service enjoyed by police, doctors and others – and also made it harder for people to escape sitting as a juror. Since, judges, lawyers and police have routinely sat on juries – although how much they influence jury discussion is not known.

But this Thursday, in test cases in the House of Lords, that change in the law will be challenged by three convicted criminals: two men will claim that their right to a fair trial was breached because the juries that found them guilty included a police officer; and in a third challenge, a youth found guilty of rape will challenge the verdict on the ground that the jury included a lawyer in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The first challenge is brought by Nurion Abdroikov, who is serving a sentence totalling 16 years imposed in 2004 for the attempted murder of a man in 2002 whom he invited back to his home, tied up, robbed and attacked. He was also convicted of attacking a woman and trying to choke her, with the aim of indecently assaulting her.

When the jury had retired to consider its verdict the foreman sent the judge a note saying that he was a serving police officer and was due to report for duty on the following Monday and might come into contact with officers in the case. The judge ordered him not to report for duty that day. Counsel were informed but no action taken.

In the second case, Richard Green, a drug addict, was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to concurrent sentences of seven weeks’ imprisonment for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and carrying a needle that he had used to inject himself with heroin.

The police sergeant searching Green pricked himself on the needle in his pocket that Green said he had forgotten about. It then emerged that a police officer serving on the jury in the case worked in the same borough as the sergeant in the case. Green claims that his conviction is unsafe and that there was a real danger of bias as the crux of the case was whether he knew he had the needle in his pocket.

The third case involves a youth who was convicted of two counts of rape and sentenced to ten years’ detention in a young offender institution. A solicitor on his jury was employed by the CPS. He wrote a letter to the judge, sitting at Warrington Crown Court, explaining his position and saying that he worked for the part of the service advising police on charging.

Defence counsel challenged the presence of the lawyer but the judge ruled that if that juror was barred, then no member of the CPS could sit on a jury and that was not what Parliament had intended. In each case the Court of Appeal has ruled that there is no breach of the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

In his judgment, Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, said that there was always a danger that jurors would be unconsciously prejudiced but the fact that there were twelve jurors, of whom at least ten had to agree a verdict, was a real protection against prejudices resulting in unfairness. But the appeal judges agreed that the cases raised “questions of general public importance” meriting consideration by the law lords.

Matthew Scott, a barrister at 3 Pump Court Chambers, who has been involved in a similar case, said: “This case has potentially wide ramifications for the newly created Ministry of Justice.” Twenty years ago, both defence and prosecution were allowed to challenge up to three jurors without reason, he said – a right since abolished.

Now, the reforms could produce “bizzare situations”, he said. “Juries have to accept directions on law from the judge. But what if the judge is a ‘wet behind the ears’ young recorder and the jury contains a Lord Justice of Appeal who may have delivered the leading judgment on the point of law in issue?”

He questioned also if it was acceptable for the 130,000 police officers to be eligible. “They play a central part in the vast majority of criminal prosecutions. They are responsible for arresting, interviewing and charging the suspects and for eliminating and releasing other suspects. Perhaps most police officers do try conscientiously to put their prejudices aside but it is hard to think that some at least do not succeed.”

Similarly, a judge is likely to end up as the foreman – as happened when one senior judge was on jury service. In that position, judges can bring influence to bear.

Does it matter? If one police officer or lawyer is excluded, then so, logically, should all. And that, as the trial judge noted, would undermine the whole aim of the legislation. Scott accepts that “the natural scepticism deference to police officers that was a feature of juries 30 years ago has been replaced by healthy scepticism”. It was hard, he added, these days to see one police officer able to sway a jury.

The numbers

The proportion of people serving as jurors has risen from 54 to 64 per cent since the change in the law, according to research.
The rates of jury service are highest among middle to high-income earners, according to the report by Professor Cheryl Thomas for the Ministry of Justice.
Overall, more than 300,000 people a year are still failing to serve when called, although many of these are merely postponing their stint on jury service for reasons such as a holiday.
From April last year to this March, 441,788 jurors were summoned initially, of whom 181,098 were eventually supplied to the courts.
More than 38,000 did not reply to their summons and in the case of 19,000 it could not be delivered.

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