Farewell ISPE Community Forum

[willendure]

I think there may still be a few IPSE members around here.

Signed up primarily for the Jury Service insurance.

These days I just chuck the jury service letters in the bin and pretend I never got them - they are not sent out recorded delivery, and Royal Mail have just been in the news for binning post themselves. I have had so many, and each time it just a complete waste of time, dial the number, never get called in. Even if they do call you in, they do it by phoning down the list until they get their quota - don't answer the phone, they just skip on to the next one. I could be on the bog when my phone goes and not get to it in time, so...

I don't need Jury Service insurance any more, bye bye IPSE.

[tazdevil]

Signed up primarily for the Jury Service insurance.

My cosec is a qualified barrister and strangely I've never been called for jury service, no insurance necessary

[NotAllThere]

Signed up primarily for the Jury Service insurance.

These days I just chuck the jury service letters in the bin and pretend I never got them - they are not sent out recorded delivery, and Royal Mail have just been in the news for binning post themselves. I have had so many, and each time it just a complete waste of time, dial the number, never get called in. Even if they do call you in, they do it by phoning down the list until they get their quota - don't answer the phone, they just skip on to the next one. I could be on the bog when my phone goes and not get to it in time, so...

I don't need Jury Service insurance any more, bye bye IPSE.

I assume then that you agree with the government about getting rid of trial by jury?

[jackii]

I remember when that forum was active. Got some of my best IR35 advice there. Shame they let it die. Another piece of the old contracting world gone.

[Protagoras]

I see no reason why a jury trial is needed where the accused is happy to have no jury provided also that there's no impact on the appeals process.

But I don't think that accused should be denied the right to a jury trial, since this remains a simple mechanism by which people can avoid conviction for unjust laws.
A judge would apply the law, jurors have the right of conscience.

This also helps reign-in governments seeking to create new laws that people don't support.

Any shortage of jury members should be addressed by compensating jurors for actual financial losses. Perhaps running trials at weekends too, to clear the backlog.

[Snooky]

I was with IPSE from the very first engineerjob/PCG days and it was great in its heyday but the forums became dead some time ago. Just like contracting really

I left a while back because IPSE had nothing to offer me that I needed.

[willendure]

I assume then that you agree with the government about getting rid of trial by jury?

No, I do think trial by jury should be a right. If I am between contracts and I get a letter, I will be very keen to do it. When you've had 10 letters and every time its call the number, no we don't need you, the system they have starts to look like a joke. I'm just fed up getting so many of these letters, I don't know anyone that has had as many as me! This is 10 over about a 2 year period.

Complete bloody waste of time. I figure if their system is so poorly run, they are also very unlikely to come after me. It annoys me that the legal profession treat people with so little respect and regard for their own busy lives.

All I am saying is, I don't need Jury service insurance for the possibility that I am in contract and have to take 2 weeks out and take a hit on my income, because, screw that.

[mudskipper]

I was a witness at a trial recently.

https://archive.ph/Uh02U if anyone wants the sordid details! (I was the "other" who disarmed him - not quite as heroic as it sounds as he was being held down at the time!)

Basically the attacker is battulip crazy (think that's the official legal term?) and unfit to plead or stand trial, so they do a "trial of facts" to determine that he actually did what he was accused of. He was present via video link but not contributing to the proceedings.

This involved showing the jury CCTV of him entering the club with a knife, stabbing my friend, being wrestled to the ground and disarmed, and sat on till the police arrived. The witnesses all confirmed that that's what happened. There honestly could never possibly have been any other conclusion!

Seemed completely unnecessary when there was such good cctv. I think for cases like that where there really is no doubt, a judge could make a decision that a jury trial is a waste of time and money.

(FWIW, there is no "guilty" verdict as such, I assume because he's not responsible for his crime, but he's almost certainly going to be detained for a lot longer than if he'd been sane enough to feign remorse - a year at the time of trial with no real improvement in his mental health)

[ladymuck]

I was a witness at a trial recently.

https://archive.ph/Uh02U if anyone wants the sordid details!

Oh no! You've shared a link to one of the 'archive' websites! agentzero will be along in a minute to give you a lecture about how unsafe those websites are and how your PC is irrevocably riddled with Russian malware.

[sadkingbilly]

Oh no! You've shared a link to one of the 'archive' websites! agentzero will be along in a minute to give you a lecture about how unsafe those websites are and how your PC is irrevocably riddled with Russian malware.