Judge Defends Jailing of Jurors

London Times
March 26, 1997
Email: editor@the-times.co.uk

A JUDGE last night defended his decision to jail two jurors for 30 days for contempt of court after they refused to take part in the jury's deliberations.

The action by Judge Anura Cooray is believed to be the first of its kind in more than 300 years but he insisted that the two had wilfully refused to bring in a verdict.

He was replying to critics after Bonnie Schot, 20, the jury foreman, and Carol Barclay, 32, were released from Holloway yesterday pending an appeal. "I was satisfied that their refusal to participate in the jury's deliberations constituted a clear contempt of court, and as such a
sentence of imprisonment was the most appropriate course for me to take," he said. "Jurors must recognise they have a responsibility to fulfill their duties in accordance with their oath if the criminal justice system is to be upheld."

Bonnie Schot said last night that imprisonment "was like a nightmare movie. I am supposed to be starting a law degree in the autumn, but I can't be a solicitor if I have a criminal record. My career is in ruins before it has begun. When the judge sent us down my legs turned to jelly and I felt numb... all I could think of was the bars of a cell and me having a criminal record."

She found the trial hard to follow. "The judge summed up the case and he seemed to be saying we should find three of the defendants guilty and two of them not guilty. Personally I couldn't understand why we had to draw a distinction between the two sets of defendants. We retired, but it was obvious to me and everyone else in the jury room that we were hopelessly divided."

The two women were empanelled with ten other people last month to try five defendants in a #100,000 counterfeit currency case. They had heard evidence for 17 days at Knightsbridge Crown Court. On March 12, after two hours of deliberation, it emerged that they had refused to take part in jury discussions.

Miss Schot sent a note to the judge saying: "Your Honour, we are unable to come to any decisions owing to some jurors conscious [sic] beliefs. Please advise."

In his statement last night Judge Cooray said: "When the court asked for particulars and clarification, a further note was received which read: 'Your Honour, some members of the jury cannot bring themselves to make a true judgment due to our beliefs, not religious but personal.
'At the beginning of the trial, before we took the oath, we felt that we could not stand up in the court and stress this fact. We thought that our feelings may change over time. After retiring we found that we still feel the same and cannot give a true verdict to these defendants'."

On Monday the judge gave the two women the opportunity to explain their conduct but, after hearing them, he had no option but to jail them, he said.

Last night Miss Schot, who has three A levels, described the Sri Lankan-born judge as "a very spiteful and vindictive man".

While not a criminal offence, a finding of contempt of court would have to be declared by a student wishing to be train for the law.

Lola Barclay, mother of Carol Barclay, an unemployed nursery nurse, said that she was delighted her daughter had been released. "We cannot believe this has happened. It has been a nightmare," she said from Shepherds Bush, west London.

Penal reform groups last night attacked the decision to jail the women.

"This was an indefensible and draconian use of imprisonment. This unreasonably harsh action can only discourage people form serving on juries," Paul Cavadino, the chairman of the Penal Affairs Consortium, said.

Leroy Redhead, the barrister representing the two women, said: "It is a very unfortunate situation and something which perhaps could have been handled slightly better."

"They are both obviously very traumatised. They are young women of good character."

A 17TH-CENTURY ruling by the Lord Chief Justice of the day established that it was a contempt under common law for a juror or jury to refuse to deliver a verdict unless to state that they could not agree.

In a case called Bushell in 1670, jurors were committed to prison for returning a verdict "against the plain and manifest weight of evidence, and against the direction of the court on a point of law". But Lord Chief Justice Vaughan held that a jury could not be punished in a criminal case for such a finding, firmly establishing that jurors are immune over the verdicts they bring and cannot be sued if a conviction is later overturned.

Jury service is a duty for all citizens, bar those who are excused, ineligible or exempt. Refusal is an offence under the Juries Act 1974 and can carry a fine of up to 1,000 (brit. pounds). Juries do not have to justify or give reasons for their decisions. Until the 17th century, they were often punished for verdicts proved wrong on appeal or contrary to the direction of the judge. The Court of Star Chamber often summoned juries and inflicted fines and imprisonment on them. In 1554, eight
jurors were heavily fined and jailed for having acquitted Sir Nicholas Throgmorton of high treason.

But by 1607 the immunity of jurors to actions brought by people injured by a wrongful verdict was established in a case called Floyd v Barker, where it was held that a writ for conspiracy could not be issued against a juror from someone indicted but later acquitted.

But jurors who reach their verdicts capriciously -- by determining their verdicts by lot or by tossing a coin -- commit an offence. A judge faced with a potentially biased jury -- for instance, on racial grounds -- has three options: to give further directions to the jury; to discharge up to three jurors from the 12 and to allow the trial to continue with the remainder, or to discharge the entire jury and order a retrial before a fresh panel. Majority verdicts were introduced by the Criminal Justice
Act 1967 and are acceptable where there are no fewer than 11 jurors and ten of them agree, or where there are ten jurors and nine agree.

Where a jury has reached a guilty verdict on the basis of a majority decision, the Juries Act 1974 requires the foreman of the jury to state in open court the number who agreed and disagreed.

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