Two jurors who carried out illicit research during an Old Bailey murder trial have been spared jail.
Dharamjeet Digpal and Richard Wellings both googled the legal definition of “manslaughter” while the jury was deliberating over a fatal stabbing.
A fellow juror — a retired police officer and magistrate — overheard the pair in a court corridor talking about what they had done and informed the judge.
Sentencing the pair at Inner London crown court yesterday, Judge Silas Reid said they had put the trial at risk and caused the victim’s family “anxiety and worry”. He told them: “Any research by a juror is a serious matter — in a murder case it’s all the more so.
“This case, as you knew well, involved a defendant who was just 16 at the time … Your behaviour risked the discharge of the jury and him having to wait months for another trial.
“There was also the family of the deceased — how would they feel if that trial was aborted for months?”
Judge Reid handed Digpal and Welling three-month prison terms suspended for a year, saying they had been spared jail because of the potential impact on their families and the fact the trial had not been derailed. “I take into account the significant amount of shame both of you feel,” he added.
The men had been on a jury for the trial of Lewis Simpson, a drug dealer accused of stabbing to death Osman Shidane, 20, in Ruislip in May 2018.
Simpson was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter, and ultimately jailed for six-and-a-half years.
Digpal and Wellings carried out the internet searches after the jury was sent home for the weekend in November 2018. Digpal told police he was too embarrassed to ask the judge about the legal terms again, but prosecutor Charlotte Godber said he also admitted googling the defendant’s name at home. Wellings said he had been “motivated by a desire to do his job well”.
Digpal and Wellings both admitted carrying out research during a trial as a jury member, in breach of the Juries Act 1974. They will never be eligible to sit on another jury.
