A juror is facing a possible jail term for writing on Facebook that he wanted to "fuck up a paedophile" after learning he would be trying a sex offender.
Kasim Davey told the high court on Tuesday the post was the result of "spontaneous surprise at the kind of case I was on – there was a lot of Jimmy Savile news at the time".
Dominic Grieve QC, the attorney general, is prosecuting the 21-year-old for contempt of court on the grounds that his Facebook activity amounted to "an act likely to interfere with the due administration of justice". Davey denies that his actions amounted to contempt.
His Facebook posting read: "Woooow I wasn't expecting to be in a jury Deciding a paedophile's fate, I've always wanted to Fuck up a paedophile & now I'm within the law!"
A judge at Wood Green crown court, north London, was alerted to the message last December and discharged Davey from the retrial of Adam Kephalas, who was later convicted of sexual activity with a child.
On Tuesday Davey appeared before Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Sweeney at the high court as the attorney general appeared in person to call for him to be jailed.
Asked by his counsel, Lord Carlile QC, if he thought he was doing anything wrong, Davey said: "As far as I was concerned, no, I was not."
In cross-examination by Grieve, Davey agreed he had been seeking to "attract attention" to himself, but said he had not referred in any way on Facebook to the actual Kephalas trial.
The judges are also hearing a second case involving Joseph Beard, who sat on a jury at Kingston crown court in south-west London trying two men accused of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering last year. The trial started on 2 October but ended on 9 November when the jury was discharged.
Beard is alleged to have done research via Google that turned up extra information about the victims to the alleged fraud, which had not been put to the jury, and then to have told fellow jurors about it.
He is also accused of carrying out an act likely to interfere with the administration of justice.
The defendants in the original trial, Ian Macdonald and David Downes, faced a retrial and were convicted in March. They were jailed for eight years and four and a half years respectively on 18 April.