Jurors may be silently traumatized after being shown disturbing videos or photographs used as evidence in criminal trials, but there is a disturbing lack of support for them or an investigation into the severity of the issue, Parliament heard this week.
Potential security measures proposed by Baroness Berridge include efforts to identify high-risk jurors and pre-trial injury clearance.
The fellow Conservative will also propose a pilot project to provide specialized psychological support to jurors during and after serious violent or sexual crime cases.
The former barrister found it necessary to ask the question in the House of Lords after reading the concerns expressed by senior legal experts. Iprize series 2019 Trial: Jury Secretscombined with other warnings from experts in recent years.
The briefing, drafted by the Baroness with psychiatrist Gunjan Sharma, explains how jurors can be exposed to “evidence of a traumatic nature,” including “graphic testimony of a victim in distress or gruesome images and video footage of the crime itself.”
The ever-increasing use of mobile phone cameras, along with more and more powerful CCTV systems, means that recordings provide important evidence.
There is also a growing trend among the most sadistic criminals to humiliate their victims with videos possibly inspired by extreme pornography, according to legal sources.
Baroness Berridge told about it. I: “Twenty, thirty years ago you heard verbal descriptions in court – now a lot of rapes are being filmed.”
She believes that forcing members of the public into the “foreign environment” of a potentially intimidating courtroom, showing them horrific spectacles without instruction and forbidding them from talking about them, is a dangerous recipe.
Her letter describes how jurors can be expected to “repeatedly recall disturbing testimony in order to reach a verdict.” They are not allowed to discuss their experiences with friends or relatives, which isolates them. Therefore, it is not surprising that the experience of serving as a juror can have a significant impact on a person’s mental health.”
Despite these risks, she said sensitivity to jurors’ privacy means the issue is not monitored and analyzed properly.
Being on a jury is “such an important service that people do for us, so we have to take care of them … but we just don’t know how it will affect,” said a colleague. “We need better data, we need evidence…so that researchers, clinicians, judiciaries and parliamentarians know what’s going on.”
“Disregard for jury care”
Last year, Dr Joselyn Sellen served on a jury at Cardiff Crown Court in the South Wales murder of five-year-old Logan Mwangi. She later revealed that the experience caused her to have recurring nightmares and was unable to work for more than a month.
Despite her training as a psychologist, D. Sellen said police footage of the boy’s body and testimony from his final hours left her “completely traumatized.”
“I felt like my normal life was completely stolen,” she told the BBC. “It completely took over my life.”
“The court is very careless with the jury,” she added. “There was no professional support from the court… the bailiffs, the guards, the judge, everyone who came into contact with the jury were fantastic, but they weren’t trained in trauma therapy.”
A spokesman for Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals told the BBC that judges ensure that justice is administered “without causing undue fear to the jury.”
Baroness Berridge said she was concerned that what a few jurors shared publicly about their experiences might just be “little geysers,” suggesting that much deeper psychological effects are bubbling beneath the surface in the minds of many more people.
The expert acknowledges that jury trials are a “delicate constitutional issue” that needs to be addressed “at the moment” so as not to diminish their role in ensuring a fair administration of justice.
However, she is concerned that jurors could suffer a vicarious injury, which the British Medical Association says may be due to “empathy for survivors”.
Common symptoms may include “experiencing persistent feelings of anger, rage, and sadness”, “experiencing guilt, shame, self-doubt” and “loss of hope, pessimism, cynicism”.
Jurors are prohibited from discussing or writing about the cases they find themselves in during the trial. After the conclusion of the trial, in contempt of the judicial laws, they are never allowed to discuss anything about the discussions or their opinion on the decision.
While they may then talk about general jury experience or factual accounts of their cases, it is not clear “whether people will know exactly what they can and cannot talk about when the trial is over,” Baroness Berridge said, “especially if they signed again mentally.
The Department of Justice notes that in England and Wales “a number of support services are already available, including GP advice and Samaritan advice.”
But psychotherapist Kate Nowlan says I that this is not enough – and while specialist post-trial support is available for jurors in Scotland, it is a small service that is “not used to enough”.
Ms. Nowlan, strategic adviser to CIC Wellbeing, which focuses on workplace mental health programs, has been researching and advocating juror injuries since 2018.
She explains that she was approached by other former jurors after she wrote a report for ITV News about the experience of a jury in a murder trial being unable to eat or sleep during the trial and was subsequently “emotionally isolated”. who suffered.
“The jurors called confidentially and asked if we had any support for them,” Novlan says. “Now there is nothing … I realized that this is a huge hole. It was a real aha moment.”
Nowlan is worried about the type of evidence the jury will have to see because “we know how these types of images affect the brain” and they are “leaving the streets unprepared”. Ms Nowlan has worked with war correspondents and says they may have similar feelings.
She said that many in the courts understand the risks but cannot effectively help: “There are judges who are completely on our side, but even they don’t know what to do.”
Ms. Nowlan supports the provision of individual support. “People might say, ‘Who’s going to pay for this?’ But it’s a very inexpensive way to prevent multiple cases of PTSD, so the return on each investment can be very high.”
She is glad that Baroness Berridge is raising this issue in Parliament. “I wrote to her in hysterics when I found out it happened,” Ms Novlan said. “I’m glad this is being discussed in the House of Lords and I hope this is the first step towards eventually launching pilot projects across the country.”
- Have you been traumatized by jury service and would like to share your experience? If so, please send the email confidentially. [email protected] and try, in accordance with the law, not to disclose anything about your discussions or your views on the decisions of your court.
Twitter: @robustings
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.