Summoned to court as a witness

[Liam88]

hi all,

i currently work in CCTV monitoring and ive received a summons to court to appear as a witness regarding an incident i dealt with in November in that I downloaded and forwarded some CCTV footage.

il be honest i don't want to go... it may sound selfish but its definitely something i didn't sign up for when taking the job and wasn't explained that this would/could be an occurance as part of the job so im a little miffed its been dropped on me now.

these summons have been cropping up a lot recently, we've had 3 in the past 4 months and the thing is i don't want to be spending x amount of my rest days per year travelling up and down the country to give evidence in court.

ive not signed a witness statement although i believe there is one here awaiting my signature which i also dont want to do as it might legally bound me to attend court?

i would like to know where i stand legally, do i have to attend? is there any way out of it? do i or do i not sign any documents to do with the incident from now on?

thanks all

[teaboy2]

Re: Summoned to court as a witness

Yes am afraid you will have to attend, you can claim expenses though. You were a witness to an incident (i assume criminal) even though you were sat behind a TV screen miles away or in the back office, you still witness the incident and are therefore likely seen as an eye witness to the incident. Not attending when you have been summoned would have consquences, not just legal but possibly even for your job too.