Hearing transcripts

Statement to the potential jurors on 27 September 2007

Lord Justice Scott Baker :

1. Ladies and Gentlemen you have been summoned for jury service not for any ordinary case but to serve on a jury on the inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed. It will probably have come as a shock to you and you will be wondering why you have not been given any advance notice. Let me explain. The deaths of these two people have created worldwide interest on an unprecedented scale. Millions of words have been spoken and written. There are numerous books, television programmes and articles that have been published, some by those who are closely involved in surrounding events and some not. Many have argued a particular point of view or have been written from a particular perspective.
2. Every jury in every case is told in the strongest terms that it must decide the case that it is trying strictly on the evidence it hears in court and not on anything its members see on television, read in the newspapers or learn about anywhere else. There is a good reason for this. Evidence given in court is not only given on oath or affirmed with a promise as to its truthfulness, it can also be tested in cross-examination. Also, evidence given in court has to be relevant to the issues under consideration and not just a comment or opinion.
3. It is very important that you, as potential jurors, should not go away and start looking things up on the internet or elsewhere or reading books or looking at television programmes or videos that refer to the events that you may be considering. If you had known in advance that you were on the jury panel for these inquests there would have been a great temptation to go away and look these things up or think it might be helpful to get up to speed saying to yourselves: “Oh didn’t so and so write a book about this” or something of the kind and then go and look for it.
4. Media and public interest has been intense and continues to be so both in this country and abroad. It is also very important that you as a juror or a potential juror do not talk to anyone about the case whether you are approached by a stranger and asked about it or even to your family and friends. Jurors take an oath or affirmation to inquire diligently into the death according to the evidence which means you have to put out of your minds anything you have heard out of court. It will not be easy to do that in this particular case but you will have to and I did not want you to do anything after receiving the summons and before coming to court today that might have disqualified you from being able to sit on the jury.
5. Jury service is one of the most important public duties that a citizen can be asked to undertake and it is important that anyone called upon to serve on a jury should serve on it unless there is a very good reason for not doing so.
6. These inquests are likely to take some time. They are not going to start today and no jury is going to be sworn in today. What is going to happen is that I am going to narrow down your number by excusing all those of you who for one reason or another should not sit on the jury. Broadly, there are two aspects to this, either a connection with the case or a witness that would make it arguably inappropriate that you should sit, for example employment by the Royal Family, or that there is some pressing personal reason such as ongoing medical treatment or a pre-booked holiday. You will shortly be provided with a long list of the names of people who may be witnesses or who are somehow involved in the matters under consideration in these inquests.
7. Also, each of you will be given a questionnaire and asked to answer a number of questions. You will have an hour or so to complete it and can do so at your leisure over a cup of coffee. It goes without saying that the answers must be true and a possible reason for not serving on the jury might have to be checked. The questionnaires will then be returned to me and I will divide them into three groups.
• Those for whom there is no problem.
• Those who are to be excused service.
• Those whom I may wish to ask further questions before making a decision.
8. At the end of the exercise there will be a pool of you who I shall ask to return on Tuesday and from whom a jury of eleven will be sworn. The purpose of this delay is to give you a few days to make the necessary arrangements and to bring to my attention on Tuesday anything you may have overlooked or anything that would make it unduly burdensome on you or your family for you to serve on the jury. I will then review your position on Tuesday.
9. The inquests are expected to last up to six months. There will be a break for Christmas. We shall not sit after Thursday 20 December 2007 until Monday 7 January 2008. If we are still going at Easter (which is quite early next year) there will be a break over the Easter holiday.
10. On Monday week the jury will go to Paris to view the scene. You will go by charter flight, stay overnight on the Monday night in pre-arranged accommodation and return on Tuesday afternoon. You will of course need the relevant travel documents. The questionnaire covers this. It is likely to be an early start that day.
11. Over the first few weeks of the hearing we shall be receiving a lot of evidence by video link from Paris. France is one hour ahead of the United Kingdom so we shall start at 9.30 am. You will be picked up from home and returned there after court. As we start early, so we shall finish early, around 4 pm, although we might go on a little if we need to complete a witnesses’ evidence. When we are hearing evidence live in this court (i.e. as apposed to evidence via video link from France) we are likely to start and end the day a little later.
12. You will not be required on Fridays, at any rate to start with, although we may have to consider sitting with you on Fridays if we fall behind. This has two advantages. First it should enable you to arrange things like medical appointments on Fridays so that we can avoid disrupting the rest of the hearing. Second, it enables us to deal with any legal issues that do not concern you as far as possible on a Friday and also to prepare arrangements for the evidence for the following week.
13. If you are asked to return on Tuesday please be careful not to talk to anyone about the case and do not read anything about it or look up anything to do with it on your computers or elsewhere. If there are any articles in the newspapers do not read them and if there are any television programmes about the death of Diana or any news items about these inquests you should not look at them.
14. I am very anxious that you should not be harassed or hassled in any way during the inquests. That is why arrangements have been made to collect you from home and return you there. If you are in any way hassled or harassed you should immediately tell one of my officers who will take the appropriate steps and report it immediately to me.
15. Serving on a jury for this length of time causes difficulty and inconvenience for everyone, so those factors cannot amount to a reason not to serve. Similarly, service on a jury for the length of time these inquests will take will undoubtedly cause difficulty for anyone who employs a potential juror, but again your employers are obliged by law to allow individuals to serve.