The Jury (TV serial)
| The Jury | |
|---|---|
The Jury title card
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| Also known as | Masterpiece Theatre: The Jury |
| Genre | Legal drama |
| Written by | Peter Morgan |
| Directed by |
Pete Travis (Series 1) Michael Offer (Series 2) |
| Starring | The Jury cast |
| Composer(s) | Rolfe Kent |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 6+5 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Peter Morgan |
| Producer(s) | Francis Hopkinson (Series 1) Lee Morris (Series 2) |
| Cinematography | Peter Middleton |
| Editor(s) | Edward Mansell |
| Running time | 300 min. |
| Production company(s) | Granada Television |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Original release | 17 February – 18 March 2002 |
The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002 (with a second series in 2011). The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.
The killing of a 15-year-old-boy rocks the nation, as a Sikh classmate of the boy is charged with the murder. The trial, which is engulfed in protests and media speculation, brings together 12 jurors who find themselves having to make a decision that the entire country is waiting for.
The jurors include: Charles, a young man who has left the seminary to search for his lost love; Elsie, an old lonely woman who is dying; Johnny, a recovering alcoholic; Rose, a beautiful woman whose husband is paranoid in the aftermath of a car accident; Jeremy, a once-wealthy family man who lost all his money when conned by a friend in a bad investment; Peter, who wants to be a good and impartial juror at the trial but is besieged by his wife's parents, who want to get involved; and Marcia, a single mother who is forced to let her mother back into her life during the trial.
The victim, John Maher, was stabbed twenty-eight times on his way to school one morning. His classmate, Duvinder Singh, is accused.
Prosecutor Gerald Lewis gives his version of events, painting Singh as a psychopath. The Maher family threaten Singh when he arrives in court, and later they decide to influence the jurors. Rose and Johnnie flirt, Jeremy discovers that the friend who conned him is a juror on another trial, Charles searches for Isobel his lost love, and Peter - against his instincts - tells his in-laws all about the case.
Singh is abused by a prison warden; the prosecution argues that Singh stole a sword, killed Maher, threw the evidence into the river and fled; Rose and Johnny have lunch; Jeremy runs into Mark Waters who claims he would have saved Jeremy if he could; Elsie befriends Charles, and later learns she will need to undergo surgery; Charles meets his best friend, Sebastian (uncredited Darren Boyd) and learns Isobel has moved on from him; Rose's husband Len grows suspicious of her; Peter's in-laws investigate the evidence; and Marcia - angry that she has to keep her mother in her life - receives a phone call telling her that, for the sake of her family, she had better vote guilty.
Len follows Rose to the trial and sees her with Johnny; Marcia receives further threats but - after telling the Judge - agrees to stay on, although the Judge says if any other juror is influenced, he will call for a retrial; Elsie learns that she may need a transplant; Cording, the defence attorney, learns of a psychopath who was arrested on the day of the crime near the scene; Duvinder takes the stand, claiming he stole the sword and planned to kill Maher but then backed out, dropped the sword and fled; Peter is threatened.
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