Embracery is on the increase in Britain

Press, 27 September 1982, Page 20

Embracery is on the increase in Britain

From the “Economist,” London

Embracery is on the rise in the United Kingdom, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds and causing the authorities a lot ,of trouble.

Embracery is the centuriesold name, for the crime of trying to corrupt a member of a jury, by threats or bribes. In the past year alone 13 cases at the Central Criminal Court (London’s Old Bailey) have-had. to be stopped because a jurofhas revealed that someone had tried to nobble him or her. '. . 1 ' '

1 Usually these approaches are made near the juror’s home or on the way to or from court. They involve either a cash offer — between a-few hundred and £2OOO seems to be the going range — or a vague threat to persuade the juror to vote “not guilty.” Judges are not legally obliged to stop ■ a trial when a corrupt approach is made. Sometimes they allow the trial to carry on in the absence of only the propositioned jury member. Usually, however, the judge and the lawyers for the defence feel that knowledge of the attempt to nobble will inevitably prejudice the whole jury against the accused, on the assumption (sometimes wrong) that he' must have organised the approach.

Two striking examples of the effects of jury-nobbling have recently come to the fore. The trial of seven defendants charged with drug-smuggling offences was abandoned when one juror revealed that he had' been offered money. The case

was nearly at its end after 67 days. ■

The cost of the abandoned trial has been estimated at between £1 million and £2 million. Sixteen barristers were involved, all paid . from public money. The evidence of 300 witnesses had been read out or given in the witness-box. Fifty customs officers had given evidence, as well as a number of witnesses who had to be brought over from other countries. All this will now have to be repeated. A burglary trial which started last week has been accompanied by stringent precautions to try' to prevent the nobbling, of the jury. . Earlier this ye !> r, structural alterations to the courtrooms at the Old Bailey were made so that the jury could not easily be seen by the general public or jury members allowed to mix with non-jurors anywhere in the court buildings. , ,

But jurors have to go home. So every member of the jury in the currents burglary, trial — which has only one defendant — is under constant (24-hour police guard and- their telephone calls are being intercepted. The judge has warned the jury not to allow those protective measures to reflect on the accused man. ;.. The criminal classes must realise that nobbling is an easy way to stop a trial. It may even be preferable to have an attempted bribe refused and reported than to have it accepted. ' • • •

In spite of the new arrangements for segregating the jury, it is not all that difficult to find out who the jurors are in any particular trial. The approach to an unguarded juror is easily made, the risk of being caught in the act of embracery — which carries a possible prison sentence — low.

The police cannot guard every jury in every case. So far, they have reserved their strictest precautions for trials involving large criminal gangs and terrorists,, but jury-nob-bling is now reaching less important trials. Jury-nobbling is only the latest of a number of recent controversies surrounding the whole jury system. Criminals convicted on quite serious charges have found it easy to be allowed to serve on juries.

The Government’s attempt to tighten up the law on the disqualification of certain criminals from jury service has run aground in Parliament and will have to be revived in the next

There are still rumblings about the wisdom of allowing 18-year-olds to serve on juries and of giving every defendant the right to reject three jurors without giving any reasons, so opening up the possibility of packed juries when there are several defendants.

People are more reluctant than ever to serve on juries and the outbreaks of nobbling gives further ammunition tb those who want the system overhauled — or even abolished.