Jurors on longest trial say ordeal left their lives in tatters

JURORS who sat on Britain’s longest ever criminal trial have told how they are struggling to return to work or communicate in the real world.

The 12 men and women spent 20 months listening to complex evidence, and say that the experience has left them in need of counselling.

In a rare move for jurors, who are barred by law from discussing anything which happened in the deliberation room, four have now broken ranks

‘I think I was always talking before this trial, and now I am just sitting at my seat not really saying much’

to discuss their experience. Julie, Anne-marie, Paul and Emma – who are only giving their first names to protect their identities – agree that the trial was an important process but have told how it has destroyed their previously normal lives.

For 320 days they sat in the High Court in Glasgow and heard how Edwin Mclaren, 52, ran a £1.6million property fraud scheme and duped vulnerable victims into handing over their homes.

The £7.5 million trial, which was originally due to last six months, began in September 2015, and by the time Mclaren was found guilty and jailed for 11 years in May 2017 only 12 of the original 15 jurors remained. Because there were only 12 of them, the minimum required on a Scottish jury, they knew that if one of them dropped out, the case would collapse.

Since the trial finished, Julie has only managed to get back to her work at a travel agency for a total of four days.

She told the BBC: “I’m still struggling. I just felt like I could not even hold a conversation … You were sitting in a room listening to evidence but you didn’t communicate. I’m really struggling with communication now.”

Paul, who said that he thought at times that the trial would “last forever”, has struggled to return to his job as a civil servant and has had to go through retraining.

The 51-year-old said: “I think I was always talking before this trial, and now I am just sitting at my seat not really saying much.”

Another civil servant on the jury, Anne Marie, said that her workplace of 40 years now seemed “alien”.

Emma, 26, revealed that she had quit her job and gone back to college to study social sciences as the trial gave her “time to reflect”. But she admitted that she “felt lost at times” and she was supported by her fellow jurors rather than the justice system, as there was “nothing there for us”.

Anne Marie said that one of the hardest things to adapt to was no longer being a part of the group of 12.

“Even when we were sat on the jury, if someone needed the lavatory we all went. We did everything together,” she said.