Jury Service - Part Two

Everyone i talk to about my recent jury service mention they'd love to do it. Let me tell how boring it is though. If you're not called on a case, and there are always a few people unlucky enough, you have to sit there in a silent room all day. No TV. You are sat down for a long time. You can try and strike up conversations with people, but you know what London is like. Many people like to keep themselves to themselves. But i found most are quite nice on jury service as its random members of the population, not the wanker-banker types you see on a tube or train during rush hour.

Even when you do get on a case, you are sat down for 3 hours listening to lawyers giving evidence in a language where many sentences start "Might I suggest..." or "I put it to you...".  They speak very slowly too, with a lot of gaps in between their sentences. This is intentional so that the stenographer (the person who types up a script of every word said in court) can keep up, as well as the jurors and judge who may be writing notes.

It's all veerrryyy slow. I have no problem keeping concentration in this type of environment. What i do struggle with is sitting still. As I do at work, long car journeys, or in the cinema, i slipped my shoes off and put my feet up, occasionally sitting cross-legged.

Of the people i spoke to, I noticed that the ones who found it most difficult were the types who had physically active jobs. One was a football coach. Another was a mechanic. They looked reaaalllyy fed up and stressed. As for Mr RightAngle Hunchback, he's retired. He was regularly nodding off. It's easier for the likes of me who work in I.T. and sit down most of the day anyway. I've not had to write so much for years though! My hand-writing is proper fucked now.

Anyway, back to the case. The judge mentions the charge in question with brief details as soon as the full 15 entered the courtroom. The charge is 'Conspiracy to Defraud' involving William Hill. If any members of the jury are currently employed or have shares in William Hill, or if you knew any of the three defendants, you will not be able to serve in this case due to conflicts of interest. It applied to none of us.

The prosecution started with the details. It is a complex case so bare with me while i try to explain it in the least boring way.

Three young ladies, Tania, Jessica and Evelyn, aged between 19 and 24, were on charges of conspiracy to defraud William Hill. We were given a massive pile of documents which would be referred to during the course of the trial.

He explained what William Hill was, and the different ways you could place a bet. You could do it all in store. Or online. If you do it online, you can either transfer funds in to your online WH (William Hill) account by credit/debit card or bank wire. There is another method not used so much nowadays where you go in store with cash and they will hand you a QuickCash voucher for the equivalent sum of money which you can then apply to your online WH account to place the funds in there. There is apparently no limit to the amount that a QuickCash voucher can be issued for.

Once you have applied the voucher code to your account, the funds have been transferred. You can then use this to gamble or print out a withdrawal receipt of a chosen amount and take this to a WH store and exchange it for cash.

The prosecution explained that in this particular case, the evidence can be classed in to two main groups. Direct evidence (facts, documents, CCTV, DNA, fingerprints, items found during property searches, etc) and Testimonial Evidence (evidence from witnesses, victims or the defendants themselves).

He started with the direct evidence. Tania used to work for William Hill but was sacked for gross misconduct involving falsifying documents. Apparently she issued incorrect amounts of winnings on three occasions. During her time there, she had a set of keys which she used to open up the branch on occasions of staff shortages. The prosecution states she had cut the keys for a copy of them which were for the robbery. When she was sacked she had to hand her keys back.

Three weeks after she was sacked, the store she worked at was robbed. There was no forced entry. The burglars had keys and had the alarm codes. CCTV wasn't active in the store for a number of weeks or possibly months due to some problems they were experiencing with it.

Another branch was also robbed within a few days. Another defendant named Victoria had already pleaded guilty and therefore wasn't part of this trial. She had worked at this other branch and had also been sacked for gross misconduct (details unknown). It was burgled in the same way although CCTV was available in that branch. Crucially, Victoria, Tania and Evelyn knew each other.

Other direct evidence. Tania, Victoria and Evelyn shared a flat during that time (a tenancy agreement was shown). Jessica lived about a mile away.

WH weren't aware those branches had been robbed, due to the stealth nature of the robbery, til a number of weeks later when their accounts didn't add up. Police then did a surprise search of the house many weeks later and a few of the stolen QuickCash vouchers were found in the hallway and in Victoria's handbag, identified by serial numbers on the voucher itself. The online accounts were created in Evelyn's and Jessica's name. They had to be legitimate accounts because when you withdraw money as mentioned above, you need to take identification.

CCTV footage of Evelyn and Jessica on different occasions withdrawing money from WH

I don't want all this to get too boring so I'll sum it up for what I've mentioned so far.

Defendants: Tania, Jessica, Evelyn. (Victoria already pleaded guilty).

Flat shared by: Tania, Evelyn, Victoria.

Sacked WH staff: Tania and Victoria. Tania had a set of keys to open up branch.

WH accounts that laundered money: Jessica and Evelyn.

Stolen QuickCash vouchers found in the flat.

The direct evidence was damning. 

He then spent three of the longest hours of my life going through a timeline of all the transactions and events IN A LOT OF DETAIL. Making special point of the time of each one. I'm not even ashamed to say i fell asleep on many occasions. Later i heard a few others did too, including Mr RightAngle which didn't surprise me one bit. Poor old guy. He nodded off on many occasions, often with his pen still in his hands and then it dropping as he fell asleep along with his head rocking to one side. One time he dropped a whole bunch of papers as he fell asleep and slid across his desk. 

They really ought to use some kind of software so that the information can be read out in an interesting voice like Morgan Freeman rather than the drone-like Prince Charles we were stuck with. 

Occasionally the judge would grant a short break if she felt it was needed. One on occasion, one guy fell asleep and snored. She then asked one of us to prod him awake then told the guy she was okay to give a short break to everyone if he needed one, but he said it was okay. I'm sure the sheer embarrassment of being sounded out in the whole court woke him up just fine.

We were at the end of day two and it looked a straight forward case to me. From what i'd heard so far, i was thinking all three guilty.

Now the testimonial evidence. And this made all the difference. Let's start with the police statements of each of the three. We were given HUGE piles of documents for this. Their police statements, the interview at the police station after being arrested. It was read out by the prosecution lawyer. I'll only mention the important parts.

Tania obviously denies any knowledge of any fraud. She mentions she knew nothing of Evelyn's or Victoria's involvement and that she had no idea who Jessica was. She says she was wrongly dismissed from her job.

Jessica stated an ex-boyfriend asked her to make an account as a favour and she didn't know why and that she was not aware of any illegal activities. She says she doesn't know a Tania. The police then let her know about phone records at which point she crumbled a little and admitted she does know Tania, who is a sort of friend of hers and that she had asked her to make an account for her as she had won some money but couldn't withdraw it as she is a previous employee of WH. She says she doesn't know Evelyn.

Evelyn said a similar story to Jessica. Tania had asked her to make an account. She said she doesn't know Jessica. 

I was pretty confused by now. I couldn't work out who was telling the truth. Jessica and Evelyn were either very very stupid girls getting themselves caught on CCTV and opening accounts in their own names. Or they were less stupid for helping someone launder money with Tania being slightly clever here.

Continues tomorrow. The boring parts are over and I'll have a few more interesting stories including finding a fly in the milk. The roof in the jury room leaking when it rained. And bumping in to the defendants in a nearby pub. 

Jury Service - Part One

So, I've been called up for jury service. AGAIN. The first time was about 10 years back and involved a road-rage case. In summary, guy A got angry with guy B's driving which nearly caused guy A to crash his car. Guy A got out and attacked guy B. Guy B's momma came out to break it up or maybe even attack guy A too, who knows. Then guy A kicked guy B's momma.

Quite a ruckus indeed. Anyway, he went down. Just. On a majority vote.

I was the only one of the 12 jurors to go for not guilty. Although that was due to the charge itself and not for the assault. The charge was Racially Aggravated Assault. And the evidence for the racial slur at the start of the altercation was simply his word against the others. The prosecution lawyer was pretty amateur though. I'm wondering if it was him who chose that charge and not just a straight assault?

In fact, i forgot to mention we were one juror short on that case cos one lady decided to JET OFF ON HOLIDAY DURING THE CASE.  Apparently she had booked it before her jury summons but didn't tell anyone. She was supposed to let the court people know so that she isn't put on any long cases or they could defer it to another date. But NOOOO she decides to come in, start a case she knew she would walk away from in the middle. 

The judge explained to us he didn't stop her going as he didn't want anyone on jury service that wasn't going to do it properly. And i think i recall her using her headphones in court too. Some african lady with poor english.

Anyway. That was in the lovely Southwark Crown Court. This time I'm in the disgusting Inner London Crown Court near Elephant and Castle. It is so shit. No TV. Cramped seating. Vending machine doesn't work. The toilets remind me of the type you see at a boys-only secondary school. The court rooms themselves are tiny too.

And then there's the surrounding area. Piss shit. Road works all over the place. Dirty cafe's everywhere. Hoodies at every street corner.

First day arrives and i'm ten minutes late. Wasn't a problem though. It started with some boring lectures about the whole process and rules and regulations, plus a boring video. They also mentioned that you can't go out for smoke breaks in case your name gets called on a case. Those poor bastard smokers couldn't smoke in between approx 9.45am - 1pm and 2 - 4pm. And with nothing to occupy them while they wait for a case, must have been difficult for some. Having said that, I did smell a strange odour in the toilets. A mix of shit and smoke if i had it correct. I can tell you now, those two do NOT go well together.

They explained if anyone is finding it difficult being smoke-less for so long, they may come to the office to get some patches. But i guess most just did it on the shitter.

Anyway, so we had to just wait til your name is one of the randomly chosen ones to go on a case. Cases start quite regularly. Every half hour or so.

So i sat back, got my laptop out and browsed Facebook and Twitter. All the while, i'm getting fully paid by work. Pretty cushty. Internet access was £5 per 90 mins. Or £25 per week. Fucking rip offs. But no i didn't pay for it. I used a clever little function on Android phones called tethering which allows me to use my phones internet access. 

Lunch time arrives and they pay £5.71 per day for food. They put it on a smart card and you can use it in the building canteen or go eat outside and claim back the accrued amount on the smart card at the end of your jury service.

I was called on to a case shortly after lunch. They choose 15 people and pick 12 people randomly from within the courtroom (the other 3 are reserves in case the defence reject one of the jurors for one reason or another).

It was some long-arse walk to the court! Go down the corridor, down those stairs, and those. Then down that corridor, turn right, the left, then right, go down the corridor, then up those stairs.

One of the 15 was this really old guy, musta been late 60's (the upper age limit for jurors is 69 - interesting choice of number). He has a massive hunchback. Everyone just stares at him everywhere he goes, mainly at wonder how he manages to get around cos he literally at a right angle while he stands. At the top of the final set of stairs he tripped and fell over. Not too bad though.

As we get inside the courtroom, there were only 14 seats available at the back. I was the 14th one to get in. I think, shit. I turn around to see who's behind me cos i remember it was the old hunchback guy. So i let him take the seat even though i was tempted to facepalm him and claim it for myself. He's a right angle anyway, how's he gonna sit down on a chair?

But no, i stayed stood up whilst they picked 12 random names, one of them being mine, and walked my way to grab a seat in the jury section. An end seat. I had no idea what a saviour that was gonna be later on. Having one side free to stretch legs and arms. 

The judge was a rather MILFish looking south asian lady. Her eloquence would even challenge the Queen herself. She KNEW she was the boss though. She'd occasionally snap at lawyers (but not in a bitchy way) for wasting time. She briefly explained the charge and the procedures of the court and the case started right away with the prosecution introducing the main details of the case which i will describe in tomorrows blog entry.

Banned from Facebook

Your account was disabled because your behavior on the site was identified as harassing or threatening to other people on Facebook.

After reviewing your situation, we have determined that your behavior violated Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. You will no longer be able to use Facebook. This decision is final and cannot be appealed.


For posting a pic of my two cousins, who reported it as a joke. WHAT?!

Bots

Bot: Software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.

Bots also aim for forums and automatically register in order to post adverts. Nowadays, they are amazingly advanced. They can analyse forum content and learn to blend in. Their posts can appear quite creative in order to try and fool a user, starting with titles like "Hi, I'm new!", or "I love your forum!".

Their usernames, though, are often the giveaway. Names such as 'TiFeimporsrer' or 'fievahaibia'. You see a thread started by that name and you know a human wouldn't create that name. Click on the image at the bottom of this entry to see an example of some posts by bots.

But things are changing. I regularly use a forum aimed primarily at British Asians. This bot appears to have known this and, I think, in an attempt to blend in, came up with a Punjabi sounding username: Hentundbeep

Clever or coincidence?

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SURGERY - PART 7 - Otto

The nurses were also quite funny, without meaning to be. Random small talk between two African nurses with very strong accents:

“Hello, how are you?”
“Good”
“What is your name?”
“Otto”
“Otto what?”
“Otto Bum”
“That is a very nice name.”
“Thank you”

HAHA. I was laughing so much trying not to make a noise.

There was another nurse who had a voice like a scratch on a blackboard. It could literally crack glass. It was so rough and screechy that I was wondering if she was faking it. I attempted to record it one time, while making extra conversation with her to get a nice long recording. Unfortunately the recorder on my phone is too crap you couldn’t really hear her much.

She called me “Nurish”. I called her PleaseShutTheFuckUp (in my head anyway). I don’t know if she was married but if she was, I reckon the husband could actually use her voice as grounds for divorce.

Here is me imitating her voice.



I'm not even exaggerating. It really was like that.

Into the 4th week now and a procedure where they put a camera into my stoma to try and find a cause for my bloating and vomiting found there was severe narrowing in my intestine. They said I’d need further surgery if it didn’t improve by itself, which it sometimes does. I then asked to be discharged cos there was nothing more they could do really. Bit of a risk as I was very unwell still, but I had really had enough of everything by this stage. The nurses even urged me to stay a few more days. But I was adamant I wanted to go home, as I could have been there weeks more just to wait to see if the narrowing improves.

I came home and didn’t have the strength to use the stairs the first 2 days or so. But I saw quick improvements in my health afterwards, with the narrowing opening up after about 2 weeks. I’m pretty much fully recovered now and put back all my lost weight, and some more.

I should have been back home a week after surgery, but took just over 4 weeks. I have the 2nd stage of the operation early next year. Really looking forward to that (!).

The End.

SURGERY - PART 6 - Bollocks Man

There was an old man opposite me who was rather scary. He had a very rough, loud voice. He also had a strong speech impediment. He seemed a little mental because of the way he spoke. Sometimes he would randomly ask me something and I wouldn’t know what the fuck he just said. I didn’t know what to do. I’d say pardon a few times and either just reply “Yeah” with a smile or just blank him. What else could I do??

I overheard some talk between some doctors, and it turns out his voice was due to a stroke he had many years ago. Sad thing was that even some nurses would ignore him, either because they couldn’t understand him or because they felt uncomfortable around him.

Very poor standard of nurses. They tended to ignore the elderly quite a lot. The elderly would moan and worry more than the younger lot. But the good nurses would communicate properly with them, reassure them, build up a relationship with the patient which led to respect. The bad nurses, which was most of them, mostly foreign nurses actually, would just ignore them which didn’t do much for their state of mind.

He was a source of entertainment though. There was one time he came back from the loo and his bollocks were hanging out! Plain view of everyone! A nurse pointed out his wardrobe malfunction while chuckling. He made a lazy attempt to cover himself but it was all still in plain view for many hours!

His last few days before he left weren’t pleasant for him. He came back from the bathroom on one occasion with blood all over him. The poor dude had fell in the bathroom. A later visit to the same toilet by myself, I saw the blood stains myself. Stupid cleaners can’t even clean properly. There was blood on the toilet bowl and on the sink and a bit on the floor. May have hit his head on the sink or toilet bowl. Ouch. And then crawled around a bit.

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Part 7 - Otto

SURGERY - PART 5 - WTF

When your in hospital for an extended period, you start to get used to the characters there. The patients, nurses, doctors, and other staff such as cleaners and food giverers. Patients come and go. Some come, but never get back home. I had 3 patients in my ward who died in the first 2 weeks. All elderly. I think everyone in this HDU ward were people who had just had surgery.

There was one old man in my ward who had no strength at all. Couldn’t walk or even sit up in bed. He’d get bed bathes and even spoon fed. He had an adult nappy for his bodily waste. He was sometimes wheeled in and out of bed with this huge machine they’d occasionally bring in. I guess to change his bed sheets or something. He was as quiet as a mouse. Never heard a peep out of him apart from when asked questions. He would sleep about 20 hours a day.

Then, for some reason he was put on a strong painkiller and something funny started happening. He’d talk in his sleep. I say talk, but it was more singing. What were the lyrics to these songs you ask?

“What… the… fuck” he’d gently sing.
“Fuck… the… what” in a rhythmic way.
“What… the… fuck”
“Fuck… the… what”

Occasionally he’d raise or lower the tone, change the volume, or leave a longer or lesser gap between each line, mixing it up a little. I was in stitches! This quiet, gentle, polite, old man! Saying such rebellious things! He did this for two nights.

Part 6 - Bollocks Man

SURGERY - PART 4

During my stay in hospital, I was continually suffering from severe intestinal muscle spasms. It was so painful!! They couldn’t do much for it apart from a muscle relaxant called Buscopan which only worked for an hour or two before the pain returned. Minimum waiting time between each dose was six bloody hours.

There was one night where it was particularly bad that I was shouting/screaming a bit. And they couldn’t do anything to help apart from the Buscopan. I was writhing and lightly shouting in pain all night, getting no sleep. During this time, I didn’t drink many fluids, which was very important for me at the time. I managed to get 1 or 2 hours sleep, woke for a loo break, felt much better, so went back to bed for a proper sleep.

I woke a couple of hours later feeling not so good. Dizzy. Weak. Sleepy. Dehydrated. I tried to get up for another loo break, but couldn’t stand, so I used one of those wee bottles they give, and asked the nurse if she can attach a hydrating drip as I was unable to drink much to rehydrate myself due to me getting bloated and vomiting.

She brushed me off and declined, saying as long as I am able to drink even small amounts, I don’t need a drip. Bitch didn’t even check my state of health. I was so weak that I thought “fuck it” and tried to get back to sleep.

I awoke feeling even worse, barely able to talk. My family soon came for their daily visit who then ordered the nurse to sort me out. A different nurse. She checked my vitals and found my heart rate was a whopping 165 and had probably been like this for a few hours. She immediately called a couple of doctors in who done their checks, asking questions to assess my level of consciousness, which was pretty high.

They measured my blood pressure, but it was so low it wouldn’t register on the machine. They tried the old-skool manual way with the pump and stethoscope but still couldn’t measure it. They gave up.

Doctors did an ECG (electro cardiogram which measures the electrical impulses from the heart which gives an idea of the health of the heart). It came back normal, so I’d probably avoid a heart failure.

They injected a drug to lower my heart rate with two different doses unsuccessfully before trying beta-blockers which take longer to work, but at least it was working. It gradually lowered to normal over the next several hours. They added a drip to rehydrate me and something called jello to increase my blood pressure. A felt a big improvement in an hour or two. I was able to talk again, though not loudly.

For the next 3 days, I was unable to get out of bed while I recovered from this episode. My body was left extremely weak. Didn’t even brush my teeth for 2 days. The day I had those bad spasms and the day after with the heart episode were the two toughest days of my life. It might have been avoided if that stupid nurse had checked my vitals when I first summoned her.

Its been about 2 months since then, and my blood pressure is still higher than my normal BP, although still within the normal range. And I’m still taking beta-blocker medication to keep it within range, although not for too much longer.

Part 5 - WTF

SURGERY - PART 3

I hope I’ve not been too depressing and boring so far. Stick around, I’ve got more interesting happeninings.

I’ve never written such big posts before. It’s difficult to structure everything. I have so much more to wrote, but I don’t know how to structure it all to keep it interesting. To keep it interesting, I think I’ll alternative between something about my health, and then something more light hearted.

Let’s start with the latter. Beeps. Beep beep. Beep beep beep. Are you finding this annoying? BEEP BEEP BEEP! LOTS OF BEEPS. I certainly found it annoying each night in the HDU (high dependency uni) when I’m trying to sleep, and all I hear are various beeps every few seconds. Occasionally, there’d be a special extra long, loud beep. When an action needs to be taken, like replace the drip bag.

Although, to be honest, if you press the morphine button a couple of times, the beeps can become rather enjoyable. A bit like trance music. You find yourself tapping your fingers to the beep.

Let me tell you about one of the main culprits of the beeps. A lovely old lady named June Rose. Or Rose June. I’m not sure which way it went, she seemed to change it each time a nurse asked her. I’ll call her Rose here because I prefer names based on flowers rather than months.

She arrived into the ward a few days after me, into the space to my left. I had a wonderful window slot by the way. Lots of natural light. There was a wonderful children’s garden outside.




Anyway, Rose. She had had some type of surgery, heart if I remember correctly, and was on the epidural for first 2 days, like me.

When it was her time to come off of it, she complained of being unable to feel one side of her body and was quite panicked about it. The doctors couldn’t really do much for her apart from reassure her and wait to see how things develop. It may have been a temporary thing. They attached lots of monitoring equipment which was the culprit of most of the beeps in the ward.

Over the next few days, confusion began to creep in. She’d talk to herself. She’d answer questions with answers that didn’t make sense. There was one day where anything you asked her, there was a 90% chance she’d reply with “not very often no”. On this day she was asked a lot of questions by the nurses and doctors to assess her mental state.

“What is your name?”
“Not very often no”

“Rose, do you know where you are?”
“Umm, not very often no”

“You are in hospital”
“I know!!”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“……….”
“Rose, do you know why you are here?”
“Not very often no”

Was quite sad to hear. She was going mental or something. And forgetting everything told to her.

After some tests and scans, they found she had had a stroke during the operation.

Ok maybe this story wasn’t so light hearted. How about a joke instead?

Police are investigating a street in Birmingham where they have already removed 62 Asians for living in the UK illegally.

They're raiding a second house tomorrow.

Ha? Or how about this. Saw this bag on my hospital bed.

Unfortunate bag fold

Part 4

SURGERY - PART 2

I awoke in the high dependency ward as expected. Can't really remember too much about that first week due to the morphine given through the epidural. Initially there wasn't much pain, but was increasing by the hour. The anaesthetist arrived to adjust the level of drugs given through the epidural which reduced the pain. Much more comfortable now. I was given small amount of soft food straight away and i tolerated it well.

Two days later they replaced the epidural with morphine. A small amount is constantly going into your blood stream. But you're also given a button which gives a little boost of morphine in times of pain.

Unfortunately, it's computer controlled (a PCA - patient controlled analgesia) with a timer and everything which only lets you administer the boost after a certain period which the anaesthetist sets. Mine was set at about every 8 mins. Bastard thing. I tried to hack it.

The morphine was soon replaced by oxycodone as it seemed to work better on me than morphine for some reason. For the next week i was hiiiiiigghhhhhh as a kite. It felt great. But it does give very vivid dreams. Sometimes bad dreams. And what you don't want are vivid bad dreams.

During the night, i would drift in and out of sleep. My mind would take what the eyes last saw before they closed, and continue it with its own messed up version. When i woke, the dream would somehow morph into what my opened eyes now see. It was almost seamless. Trippy!

At this point, the Dr's were saying i should be discharged in a few days as i was recovering as expected.

But, probably the third day now, i started to bloat very easily. It got worse as i started to vomit green puke (green due to the bile, which indicates vomit coming from an area past the stomach) and severely bloated, so they stopped me from eating which ended up being 2 weeks of no food and a drop of weight to 6st 7lbs! That's 43kg for you imperialists.

A few times I actually puked close to a litre of vomit in one go! They ended up placing an NG tube up my nose and down into my stomach so that if i were to feel blaoted and nauseus, i could suck the vomit out through the tube before actually puking to reduce the stress of it all.

I'm guessing you're dying to see photos. So here they are. First pic is me with the NG tube up my nose which goes right down to the bottom of my stomach. It can suck up any liquidy stuff in there. See the green vomit in the 2nd pic? Good. Remember that image next time you have a meal. Next time you have anything green :)



I remember when the two nurses came in to insert it. They warned me its a very uncomfortable one minute or so. And at the time i was nauseous. Can you guess what happened?

I heaved several times, followed by a projectile vomit! Mostly on the bed, but some on the nurses! 100 POINTS TO ME!

Part 3