Coroners and Justice Bill

I support this amendment and have put my name to it. I have a concern about the way in which a group of people behaves when its number becomes very small. If you have a group of only six people, you do not have the ability for someone to hold a balance. In a very small group, if one person feels outside the group, it is quite easy for them to feel intimidated and, perhaps, to begin to doubt their own sense. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has pointed out, the evidence shows that decision-making is sounder when a slightly larger number of people is involved. I would be interested to know the reasoning. We now have compulsory jury service for a much wider base of the population than previously, so I do not believe that it can be because there is difficulty in getting a jury when one is needed. The marginal cost of having the extra people on the jury must be so small as to be relatively insignificant. Of all the events that can ever happen to anyone, death is the most final and absolute. Where somebody’s life has been taken by the wrongful deed of an agent of the state, nothing at all can be done to bring that life back. If people have been defrauded or have lost all their goods or their livelihood, there is at least the possibility of compensation, however terrible the event has been. With death, there is absolutely nothing. Compensation to the family does nothing. It papers over the cracks that will remain in their lives for ever as massive gaping holes. If we are looking at somebody’s death, particularly where there is concern about deliberate killing, we must make sure that the jury is in the best position to make the best quality of judgment that it can.