Former chief crown prosecutor Nazir Afzal on why Channel 4’s social experiment is so groundbreaking and its similarities with BBC hit The Traitors.
Channel 4’s social experiment The Jury: Murder Trial began last night, with the aim to make viewers question how trustworthy our jury system is.
The trial may have been a reconstruction of a real case, but it still offered a fascinating case study of the UK’s legal system and the usually kept-secret deliberation process of not one but two juries.
Ahead of its opener, former chief crown prosecutor Nazir Afzal spoke on The One Show of why the series is so groundbreaking, and why it’s “very much more Traitors roundtable than it is 12 Angry Men”.
The BBC’s hit reality programme certainly offered some interesting insights into the human psyche – and how good we are at determining whether someone is lying.
“It gives you an insight you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
— BBC The One Show (@BBCTheOneShow) February 26, 2024
Former Chief Crown Prosecutor @nazirafzal tells us why his new series, which looks at the role of the jury in a trial, is so groundbreaking 👀
Watch #TheOneShow live now 👉 https://t.co/yOskjSXqqN pic.twitter.com/KQwYwaouyJ
“The groundbreaking nature of this is because we don’t get to see what’s inside a jury room, it’s a secret deliberation,” Afzal told hosts Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas.
“It’s against the law for a juror to talk about the case that they were involved in, it’s against the law to observe what they do, so this is a completely secret environment upon which our whole legal system is built.
“We’ve had the jury system for about 1,000 years now, and all our most important, our most serious, cases are dealt with by juries.”
He added: “That’s why here you get an insight. Even though it’s artificial, and the reason it’s artificial is because you can’t do it legally, here you get an insight into what happens in a jury room where 24 people, or two lots of 12, are running through the case, deciding whether or not they have understood the evidence and decided what the verdict should be.”
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The Jury: Murder Trial began on Monday 26th February at 9pm on Channel 4. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on.
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