Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases of covid-19 have been confirmed among jurors by court.

Since 18 August until Friday 12 November there have been 28 confirmed positive test results for Covid-19 reported among jurors in 16 locations across HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s estate. During this period the Jury Central Summoning Bureau transferred approximately 52,000¹ people to the courts for jury service. There are currently jury trials running in 79 Crown Courts, 5 Nightingale Courts and 4 other existing court locations.

Table – Number of confirmed Covid-19 among jurors by court.

We take swift and robust action for each suspected or positive case. There should be no assumption that a confirmed case indicates that there has transmission within a court building and not all confirmed cases relate to the same empanelled jury.

Before restarting jury trials all courts have completed a Jury Trial checklist in addition to the risk assessments we have completed in all open courts and tribunals. Public Health England have reviewed our arrangements and they have confirmed that our standards meet their guidance.

All data is internal and not subject to the same level of checks as official published statistics. Although care has been taken when processing and analysing this, the details may be subject to revisions inherent in any large-scale manual system.

¹ This includes jurors who may be excused, deferred or released by the court before serving, and that random selection means that not all jurors get on a trial.