Woman in England won't fly to NZ for jury service

Tanya Stone has been told she has to do jury service in Tauranga, even though she lives in England.

She has received her third Tauranga District Court jury summons in 10 years but says she will not report to court on January 24 as the letter orders.

She says she has no qualms about fulfilling her civic duty -- it's just that she lives in Watford, near London, and has done so since the late 1980s.

But this has not stopped the New Zealand Ministry of Justice sending her three summonses in that time.

The first two were addressed to Mrs Stone and sent to her parents' Tauranga address.

Both times her mother, Faye Wordsworth, called Tauranga District Court to explain why her daughter would not be reporting as asked.

The second time, Mrs Wordsworth supplied the court with her daughter's Watford address to prove she lived in England.

The third letter summonsing her, dated December 9, 2004, was sent straight to Mrs Stone's flat in Watford.

Mrs Stone told her parents about the latest summons during a festive phone call, leaving her father, Alan Wordsworth, flabbergasted.

"This is just beyond a joke," he said.

Mrs Wordsworth said her daughter would be more than happy to attend jury service if the ministry paid for her flights back to New Zealand.

A spokesman for the ministry said that under the Juries Act anyone who was registered to vote was qualified and liable to serve as a juror. There was no system in place to stop people living overseas from receiving a summons.

The ministry does not pay a person's airfare and expenses to fly home and serve on a jury.