A British Muslim woman found yet another use for the amazingly versatile radical Islamic badge of oppression, the burqa, by using it to disguise her contempt for the infidels’ legal system: Murder juror ‘listened to music under hijab’.

A juror could face an unlimited jail sentence after she was arrested for allegedly listening to an MP3 player under her headscarf during a murder trial.

The judge at London’s Blackfriars Crown Court thought he heard “tinny music” during the testimony of a man who brutally beat his disabled wife to death. The Muslim woman in her early twenties, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had repeatedly tried to avoid jury service.

She was finally ordered to serve on the jury in the trial of pensioner Alan Wicks who was subsequently convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death after 50 years of marriage. Problems started the next day with the first of a number of late arrivals at court, prompting Judge Roger Chapple to repeatedly ask her to change her ways.

The woman not only continued to be late, but left lawyers wondering whether she was “in a world of her own”. Some of those in court became convinced she was doodling instead of reading important documentary exhibits distributed to her and fellow jurors. This led prosecutor Peter Clarke QC to ask for her to be discharged.

But the judge rejected his application, pointing out the “random selection of jurors was a very important aspect of the trial process”. That meant discharges should follow only for “very, very serious …improper behaviour” and then not until “necessity” had been demonstrated.

But a day later, a member of the defence team thought she caught a glimpse of a wire under the woman’s traditional Muslim hijab. Finally, another woman juror sent the judge a note, which apparently confirmed his suspicions that the juror had been secretly listening to music instead of following the trial.

(Hat tip: LGF readers.)