Expert for The Jury: Murder Trial believes second series reaches 'wrong verdict' next week

Daily Mirror

6 hours ago

Criminal barrister Alex McBride says he found the reasoning behind the verdict to be "imprecise" on the BAFTA-winning show, to be stripped over four consecutive nights on Channel 4
A criminal barrister who appears as an expert on Channel 4's Bafta -winning legal series The Jury: Murder Trial believes the 12 men and women chosen to re-enact the real-life case reached the wrong verdict.
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As the second run kicks off next week, Alex McBride said he disagreed with the conclusion the Liverpool-based jury came too, after two weeks of drama that included furious rows and tears.
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This time the defendant is a young mother who has murdered her boyfriend of six months by stabbing him through the heart and the jury must decide if she acted in self defence - or not.
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Alex said that because jurors bring their own life experience into the jury room, they interpret evidence differently - which was an important part of the process. 'They actually struggle in this show. I'm not going to give away the verdict but I thought it was fascinating, the process they went through and I don't personally agree with the verdict they came up with.'
Claiming that nevertheless their verdict in the murder trial was 'justice being done', he explained: 'Looking at it and seeing how they came to their verdict, it was imprecise, it wasn't done in a particularly neat way.'
Viewers will learn in the fourth episode whether the verdict of the ordinary people selected as TV jurors matches the one given in the original trial. While the details remain identical, the names and locations have been changed in order to anonymise the case. This series will feature just one jury rather than the two that featured last year, because audience feedback suggested it had been confusing to engage with 24 separate characters.
Executive producer Ed Kellie admitted there could be 'a PR effect' because of the possibility of the original defendant having been found guilty and sent to prison.
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He said: 'We anonymise the case out of the moral belief we shouldn't be retrying people - we're not a campaigning programme, we're trying to shine a light on what happens in thousands of trials. We pick real trials because you could never write the complexity - there is something special about real life.
'The verdict our jury reaches has no legal effect. It could have a PR effect but we'll never comment on the ordinal case or confirm what it was.'
The defendant is pleading self defence and there is witness and CCTV evidence which shows the victim had been a violent and aggressive person who used drugs and alcohol. She claims she stabbed him to save her own life because he was strangling her but is also shown to have lied to the emergency services and delayed calling an ambulance.
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One juror, retired chef Dave, is convinced the young woman is guilty from the off while support worker Aimee, is equally sure she is innocent and a victim of domestic abuse.
The fourth episode sees a surprising new piece of evidence from the defence. Ed says they went through 2000 cases to find the right one to re-enact for the show. 'We go to extreme lengths to try and create something that's as authentic and realistic as it possibly can be,' he said. 'Our agenda is to tell the best, most gripping story. True crime has twists and turns and we were looking for proper emotional complexity.'
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Laurie-Anne Power KC, who also provided expert advice for the programme, said there was no fairer way of reaching justice than trial by jury, despite experiments showing that different verdicts will be reached by different groups hearing the same evidence up to 33% of the time. 'Don't touch juries!' she pleaded. 'As a system, it's as close to perfect as we're going to get.'
Laurie-Anne said that the group selected to take part in the TV show, which features actors in the other roles, were 'a true reflection of the types of jury we get at the Old Bailey all the time'.
Alex agreed that the alternative, being tried by a judge and magistrates, was not a good option. 'I know many judges and some of them are the worst human beings - you wouldn't want them deciding on your guilt or innocence. The system has to be fair, and the fairest way is with a jury."