English Audio Request

I think we all know that people are sometimes acquitted, in clear breach of the rules, for these reasons. A barrister friend once told me about a case he prosecuted, against a woman who had broken into a former boyfriend's flat to take a video he had made of the two of them having sex. She was charged with trespass and stealing. "Of course she was guilty of those technical charges," he said "but we all knew the jurors were never going to convict. I couldn't blame them. The boyfriend was revolting and the poor woman had everyone's sympathy."
I do feel uncomfortable, knowing how naturally we all speculate on each other and judge our personal relationships so often on the basis of what is meant rather than what is done, that we must struggle to switch that off when it comes to defendants. Why strive to turn ourselves into electronic calculators? Every day of our normal lives there is an opportunity to forgive someone who has done something wrong if you think they meant no real harm. It might be your lover, your boss, your employee, your mum; if you can see an innocent instinct behind the horrible words or gesture then, wherever you are, outside of a court, you are the better person for letting that prevail. Sympathy is one of the finest human emotions; why should 12 jurors fight against it?
Write in if you think you must, but I already know this is a contentious opinion. Friends and acquaintances have yelled at me for it, so perhaps I am wrong. Maybe I am too affected by poor, kindly old Michael Arnold shuffling off to prison. Certainly, admitting these thoughts might make me ineligible for any future jury service.
If so, good. Sitting in judgment on a fellow person, then living with it afterwards, is far more stressful than I ever imagined. I am working hard to block out every minute of the entire grim fortnight – except one: after my last trial, watching tears course down the face of an innocent, flawed human, just like the rest of us, when the foreman pronounced: "Not guilty."