Grudge against your neighbour? Don't like the way the man in the corner shop looks at you? Generally hacked off with the human race, this dreary February morning? Here's how to get your own back.

It only works, alas, if you are a member of a racial minority. But it might be worth a stab if you are Welsh. Or Irish. Actually, I'm a quarter Scottish.

I have not long got back from jury service. The usual pettiness, the worst side of human nature... But one case raises serious concerns. The facts were simple. Woman A, of Indian extraction, was in an altercation with Woman B, white, when C, Woman B's boyfriend, appeared. The altercation continued, with A alleging at one point: “You're all racists.” After this, she claims, C used an (inaccurate) term of racial abuse, and spat at her. He missed. She called the police, and 18 months later, here we all are in a suburban Crown Court.

There were indications that there had already been an incident of racial abuse, at least, in that street, but not involving B and C. No established pattern of behaviour, therefore. There is, you will have noted, no evidence a crime was even committed. The only evidence comes from an unsupported statement from a clearly hostile witness, Woman A.

Had it involved any other form of minor criminal activity, it is inconceivable the case would have gone to court. Consider this. Two youths are involved in an altercation with a third. He goes to a police station and alleges one of them hit him. No signs of injury, no CCTV evidence, no neutral witnesses. Do the police prosecute? Do they hell.

So why did they here? No jury is going to convict. Had C marched into the court singing the Horst Wessel, one might have taken a view. As it happens, I didn't much take to him. But his explanation of why he was present was reasonable. You cannot convict, on the uncorroborated testimony of one person.

I am not allowed to say what was said in the jury room. It is a matter of record, though, that we were back in court in minutes and that the verdict was a unanimous “not guilty”. It is also a matter of record, because it was said in open court, that the judge apologised to us for the “trivial” nature of the case.

Why was it brought? Are the police so terrified of being accused of “institutionalised racism” that they automatically bat over to a jury any allegation of racial abuse, however unlikely it is to result in a conviction? Is it really so easy to land someone you dislike in court?

How many malicious allegations made on the slenderest of evidence result in an innocent defendant being put through the ordeal of a trial? And are juries ever daft enough to convict? I don't know. But mind how you go.

Martin Waller is deputy City editor

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