Hacking Trial Jury Watch Is A Waiting Game
Updated: 2:47pm UK, Wednesday 25 June 2014
By Jim Old, Sky News Producer
I'm not a fan of the public restaurant at the Old Bailey. For a start, it's not really public.
Unlike most English courts, you can't just walk in off the street and wander around the Bailey.
The word restaurant is probably stretching a point too. Think 1970s bus station refectory with cuisine to match.
However, the restaurant (shall we just call it a canteen?) is the traditional gathering place for journalists on "jury watch", the frustrating age-old process of waiting for a jury to return with verdicts.
Twelve good citizens are shepherded into a room at the end of a trial.
The door is locked and they're guarded by a jury bailiff who is sworn at the beginning of every day to keep them in a "private, convenient place" and "suffer no one to speak to them" until they've finished their deliberations.
No one, not even the bailiff, knows what is being said in that room.
There is no way of telling if they're progressing harmoniously or if they're locked in some fierce factional stalemate.
So what does the journalist do? He or she turns up at the court daily at 10am.
The jury file in, the bailiff is sworn and they file out again.
The journalist scrutinises their faces for some tiny indication of how things might be going.
He knows it's pointless to speculate but can't help himself.
How are they looking? Why are two jurors no longer sitting next to each other? Why is A smiling and B looking at her feet?
In the closing weeks of the hacking trial, jury-staring by all parties (defendants, lawyers and press) became so intense, the judge had to tell us to avert our eyes when they came into court.
Sitting around waiting for something to happen does not come naturally to reporters and as the days turn into weeks a certain anxious impatience can creep into the press pack.
Prolific hacking trial tweeter Peter Jukes described the jury watch atmosphere in the canteen as "semi-studious, semi-raucous ... like a school library when teacher's absent."
I'm not afraid of a bit of raucousness but I was afraid of failing to hear the tannoy announcement calling us all back to court 12.
After eight months covering the trial, the idea of missing the verdicts was enough to stop my heart.
With the jury locked in deliberation and no clues as to when it would end, Sky News always had a minimum five-strong team at the Old Bailey.
With all the other colleagues poised to leap into action back at Sky News HQ, I felt a weight of expectation on my shoulders. I could not imagine life after a missed hacking trial verdict.
So I sat in an empty courtroom (with a couple of other nervous types) and stared at the wood panelling behind the jurors' empty seats while listening to the soft hum of the air-conditioning.
When the jury did come back with their verdicts, I was ready (oh so ready) and waiting.
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