I’VE seen the films, I’ve read the newspapers so I thought doing my civic duty on jury service was going to be exciting. How wrong I was.

After being searched at Warrington Crown Court I was shown into the juror’s room. The only other person in there was a woman primary school teacher from Lowton.

We chatted while we waited laughing at the fact that there were only two of us.

About 15 minutes later the usher arrived. Introducing himself as Keith he said he wasn’t sure why we were there as there wasn’t a trial on. He said to report back at 9.30am on Tuesday. So I went to work.

Tuesday dawned and back I went. This time there were six of us. A young, smartly dressed guy, an electrician from Runcorn, an older retired chap and a professional looking man who was very attached to his laptop.

It transpired we were the newbies – the rest of the jurors had already done a week and would arrive later. We were told our duties and watched a film about the court process.

Towards 10am the ‘second weekers’ arrived. They were an interesting bunch. Among them were a couple of young guys, dressed casually in jeans, trainers and hoodies. A woman with long dark hair and several tattoos, a young mum from Wigan, an older woman with her head in a book and a 40-something guy who liked the sound of his own voice.

A division sprang up – the ‘second weekers’ all went to sit in another part of the room. They had already bonded and friendly banter included everything from X Factor to who had the oldest games console.

Us newbies were more reserved and apart from the odd word we amused ourselves with various pursuits while we waited ... and waited.

Smiling Keith kept us posted with updates: “There’s been a bit of a delay, at least an hour,” he said. Time for a cup of tea.

Just after 1pm we were told the defendant had pleaded guilty, game over. We were to ring later for the next day’s arrangements.

Day three and we were not needed until 10.15am, so I went to work first.

Keith said there were two trials on. All looked hopeful.

One of the ‘second weekers’ asked if she could watch the TV and came to sit in ‘our bit’. This Morning with Phil and Holly came on, I wasn’t sure I could cope with the excitement.

Lunchtime arrived and we were let out.

Returning, the TV had been switched to ‘Dave’ and Top Gear was on. It was the episode where Jeremy Clarkson asks John Prescott why he built a bus lane on the M4.

About 2.35pm, Keith ushered us upstairs. We had made it into court!

The woman judge gave brief details of the case and asked if we knew various people involved. None of us did.

When the clerk read our names we were to say ‘yes’ and move to the juror’s bench. There were 17 of us so five wouldn’t be required.

Name after name, until the last one.

Our judicial system was rolling and I wasn’t needed.