Gripping murder trial reconstruction puts the jury system in the spotlight and receives four stars from CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

The Jury: 14 And On Trial For Murder (Channel 4)

Rating: Four stars

Rating:

Jury service can be bad for your health. Up to half of jurors report symptoms of depression, dark intrusive thoughts, problems with sleeping and even traumatic stress after trials involving violence or sexual abuse.

Last year, a pilot scheme was launched to offer counselling to people affected by jury services. And after watching a reconstruction of one particularly shocking trial, it isn’t difficult to understand why some might need it.

The Jury: 14 And On Trial For Murder uses actors to restage a court case involving two brothers, 22-year-old Luke and Daniel, 12 (14 when the case came to trial), who admitted killing their stepfather with a knife as he slept.

Using a serrated kitchen knife, they hacked at his neck until he was almost decapitated.  

Though this was not real courtroom footage, the evidence shown to jurors appeared to be genuine, and included two gruesome photos of the corpse on the bloodsoaked sofa.

Another picture showed the foul squalor of the family’s home, with refuse including a bag containing dirty nappies piled up on the kitchen units next to food.

The victim was Connor Fitzroy, who lived with the brothers’ mother Julie and their three younger children. Luke and Daniel were Julie’s sons from a former relationship, and Fitzroy bitterly resented the space they took up and the cost of feeding them.

Some of the jurors, who are not actors, made no attempt to hide their preconceptions. Signwriter Phill, 59, believed every crime merited punishment: ‘My values come from my parents. My mum used to give me a right old slap if I was naughty.’ 

Sociology student Christopher, 20, was adamant from the start that nobody is ‘born evil’. Upbringing and environment explained everything, he insisted.

That’s the drawback of this TV format: everyone taking part knows the cameras are watching and, rather than waiting to hear the evidence before reaching a decision, some were itching to deliver an immediate verdict.

Most of them were whispering in the jury box, showboating sotto voce, and surely that isn’t allowed. All 12 seemed to focus almost entirely on the younger of the brothers. That’s to be expected, and the title of the programme reflects that.

Narrator Indra Ove explained anyone over the age of ten can be held responsible for criminal actions, though one obvious point was omitted: while children under 18 will usually face trial in a juvenile court, murder cases are treated differently. These have to be heard in an adult court.

Condensing several days or weeks of evidence and cross-examinations into a couple of hours inevitably means much is left out. But what remained was gripping, and the twists in the story were well-paced.

At the midway point, it’s clear that Fitzroy, a hard drinker with convictions for battering his wife, is no loss to humanity. But can that excuse what amounted to butchery?