We're off to Cornwall this afternoon and will be touring in our motorhome, so probably won't have internet access very often.

Rest assured, we will be listening and I'll miss our discussions on here! I'll try not to get chucked off any campsites for excessive cheering when Helen is acquitted.

I doubt you will be heard over the din of cheering. I have a mental picture of a camp site, caravans in neat rows, all rocking on their chocks with collective jubilation come 7.15pm.

I have this image:

And soon I heard such a bustling and prancing
And then I saw the whole village was dancing
In and out of the houses they came
Old folk, young folk, all the same
In that quaint old Cornish town

Every boy took a girl 'round the waist
And hurried her off in tremendous haste
Whether they knew one another I care not
Whether they cared at all, I know not
But they kissed as they danced along

And there was the band with that curious tone
Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone
Fiddle, 'cello, big bass drum
Bassoon, flute and euphonium
Each one making the most of his chance
All together in the Floral Dance

One of my favourite English folksongs .... but not when sung by Wogan

Very apt.

I prefer it to the Village Pump. We don't hear that since Tom Forrest died.

They're going to leave this dangling aren't they.

I reckon the sunday episode will include the deliberations of the jury.

Yup. Thought so

It was a bit rough on the eleven non-tweeting jurors that they got the bollocking from the judge

Johnny is very sweet. Where did he live with his mom? His accent sounds Northern.

Verdict on Sunday

Yorkshire I think. He is also related to Susan Carter I think but that is never mentioned. I need to think through to work out the rrelationship but I am pretty sure she is part of the Horrobin clan

Thanks - I love the way he talks.

His mother is a Horrobin - I seem to remember Pat not being very happy when she got together with John

Sort of spoiler about Sunday's ep from the BBC page, about the jury:



Whoops- try again...

Yes he's been brought up in Leeds by his mother and stepfather Aiden I think or Eamon. Wasn't his mother Sharon who lived in a caravan on PatnTonys land or am I thinking of someone else?
Lakie lady hope your journey is going well and you stopped off to tune in.

Yay! (Thanks for the heads up DD! Won't say any more at this stage as I have no idea how to do a spoiler!)

I was just thinking that if I was a member of the jury listening to that evidence in court and knowing none of the background that we know, it would be a very hard case to call! Helen and Jess so convincing in their testimonies, Rob so confident and keen to show his loving, fatherly side! It all boils down to who the jury believe.

Why was there no reference to Neil or did I miss that?

I was wondering about that earlier too. Perhaps Anna thought after Ian's feeble showing that they should cut their losses and not include Neil. Imagine how they would have torn into him

Welsh-Lad, as you have chosen not to accept a private response:

I didn't make an aspersion, I was speculating as to why you thought it was appropriate to make such a potentially-upsetting and bizarrely specific statement that was totally out of proportion when discussing a fiction (yes, The Archers is a fiction), and then felt I was preaching for pulling you up on it. But I imagine this perhaps something you also say about real-life people you don't like, so maybe it doesn't seem serious to you.

It also comes across like you are the leader of a little clique on this thread, which is intended for everyone to join, so by all means carry on enjoying that.

Anne_C: to spoil...?...do a spoiler...anyway, that thing: the spoiler icon (on my laptop) is the right hand icon above the message box, a very faint capital letter S. Click on it and paste the url between the two bracket signs where the cursor automatically appears. I messed up mine before because I tried to add text to the url. Too much



And Joshua- I hope this thread doesn't come across as cliquey. I need every passing reference I can get in order to fill in the great gaps of my intermittent listening

Sorry PM box was full. I haven't refused anything or blocked you, otherwise I wouldn't have seen this post.

As for 'clique leader' - I think that is a figment of your imagination, sorry.
What 'clique'? Who else is in this 'clique?'

Rhetorical questions.
I wish you all the very best and when you are ready to discuss the actual content of the programme like everyone else, I'm sure we'll have fun

Yes that is what's so hard to do! Detatching from what we know and try to be as ignorant (not the right word) as the jury. There was one point tonight when it really did sound like Rob had been trapped by two mad unstable women

And there hasn't been a passing reference has there? Y'know something like Kirsty saying "Didn't Neil do Helen proud just now?" Seems he hasn't testified full stop.

Feel free to say "Shut up about your jury duty already!" but from my own experiences of them, juries are really cautious and take very seriously the idea of "beyond reasonable doubt" when it comes to finding someone guilty. At times I thought we -I mean the cases I was on- maybe set the bar too high for the prosecution, but when push comes to shove, people feel very uncomfortable about sending someone to prison unless they feel really sure they're guilty.


So- good news for Helen, less satisfying for any future trial Rob might take part in.

Sounds fascinating - would love to be on a jury.... but would also feel really daunted.
One thing the judge said tonight was something like "Usually in a jury you will all come to a conclusion you are all happy with" (major paraphrase!)
Is that true?? I'd have thought in ambiguous cases (like many are) there would be quite entrenched opinions re guilt/innocence among jurors by the time of summing up.... yet most jury decisions are unanimous. How do you all reach a consensus?

I can't speak for juries where it's 50:50, but on one of my cases there was one juror who thought the defendant was guilty and the rest of us were varying shades of "it's impossible to be sure based on the evidence". Many of those 11 also swung on how sure/unsure they were as the discussion of evidence went back & forth. We really thrashed it out, and I never felt that a few individuals dominated because the foreman did a really good job of making sure even the shy people had their say. In the end, the one juror who thought the defendant was guilty never actually changed her mind, but accepted there wasn't enough evidence, so we eventually became unanimous on the not guilty verdict, with most thinking he was innocent and a few thinking he was maybe guilty but there wasn't enough evidence.

In one of the other cases (I did 3 fgs!) it was more like half thought he was guilty and the other half were ambivalent. Then, the discussions crystallised the evidence and we came to a -personally- nervous unanimous guilty verdict; we were then all massively relieved to find out that the defendant had a long list of previous convictions. Not proof, I know, but a relief none-the-less, and shows how important it is that knowing previous history could sway a jury. Again- the role of the foreman in making sure that everyone contributes was vital. And often it was the shyest, most tongue-tied juror who would raise issues that would lead to everyone really trying to get to the nitty-gritty. I was impressed that the biggest characters never took over proceedings. It was a massively life-affirming experience and made me feel very proud of our judicial system- nothing was ever taken for granted.

The third case we found not guilty due to lack of conclusive evidence. In that one I came away thinking that the police just didn't have the manpower to collect the evidence necessary for smaller cases.

On each jury, the jurors who thought they were guilty were questioned by everyone else to give their reasons far harder than the other way around. And no one seemed uncomfortable with that. So I suppose that's where the consensus maybe tends to come from- the burden of proof is much higher than in an ordinary battle of wills where two sides think opposing things.

btw- I did two separate jury duties- we didn't rattle through 3 cases in a week!

So you got called up twice? That happened to my gran - she did it three times in her lifetime. Come onnnn - I haven't been once yet! As you said - it sounds life affirming.

Interesting re. the burden of proof. As you say, the burden needed to prove beyond reasonable doubt does naturally lead to a unanimous decision, because if, say, 11 people say acquit and just one says convict, the one can see for himself /herself that there must be at least reasonable doubt if 11 people are convinced.

Sounds good for Helen then perhaps? There are enough mitigating factors to provide sufficient doubt even if some of them do believe she is essentially guilty?

And guess who is on the jury?

When I needed to do my first spoiler, I went into "General Discussion" and then into "Newbies introduce yourself". I apologised and said I wasn't new but needed a place to practise doing a spoiler in case I got it wrong first time which I did. They were lovely and helped me.

As far as Neil is concerned I seem to recall that Susan gave him major grief when he told her he'd been asked so he had drop out which is why they looked to Ian.