A record of violence? Song lyrics and their use as criminal evidence"
Written by Ted Culley - 14 April 2026
Violence has long been present in the lyricism of modern music. Take The Police’s 1983 song Murder by Numbers or The Clash’s 1979 track The Guns of Brixton; both are proof that musicians and listeners alike have long enjoyed exploring the mindset of criminals. Many artists (and their listeners) in newer genres of music, such as UK drill, continue to explore these themes today.
However, since 2003 song lyrics and videos have been capable of more than just raising eyebrows. Where they are believed to have a connection to a real crime, they have been used as prosecution evidence in youth violence cases in England and Wales. As aspiring lawyers, you might be wondering, should song lyrics be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution? Currently, legal opinion isn’t exactly singing from the same hymn sheet.
In February, Baroness Chakrabarti (who served as shadow attorney general between 2016 and 2020) voiced her support for the implementation of amendment 62 to the Victims and Courts Bill in the House of Lords. This is a new amendment which seeks to prevent unjust criminal convictions through ‘prejudicial over-reliance on a person’s musical taste as probative of criminal proclivity or intent’. Chakrabarti highlighted the case of Ademola Adedeji, stating:
“A nine-second video clip of someone identified as one of the defendants, with drill music playing in the background, was used as evidence of his gang membership. In closing, the prosecution Silk told the jury that some of the defendants had become involved in gang culture ‘because they had an interest in drill … with its themes of violence, drugs and criminality.’ The Night Manager, anyone? The Court of Appeal found that the young man had been misidentified. There was not even rapping in the video. This is how bad this practice is. He was of good character: head boy and captain of the rugby team, with an unconditional offer to study law … His conviction was quashed, but only after serving three years in prison.”
Whilst lyrics are not typically used as direct evidence of a crime, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, song lyrics can currently be used to demonstrate evidence of behaviour linked to crimes (known as bad character evidence). In R v O [2010] EWCA Crim 2985 (a case involving possession of a firearm and ammunition, with intent to endanger life) appearing in a YouTube video and rapping using words relating to guns and gangs alongside others was deemed as sufficient evidence by the prosecution. Bad character evidence can also be taken from non-verbal actions. In the case of R v Sode [2017] EWCA Crim 705, hand gestures made by the defendant in a music video were said to denote support for a gang and helped to form the motive of a murder that would take place two years later.
Criticisms levelled against the way music is currently used to form bad character evidence highlight that lyrics (especially in genres such as rap and drill) are often exaggerated and are not intended to be taken literally or directly. In response to Baroness Chakrabarti’s statements, Lord Bailey of Paddington provided: “Much of the bragging and the boasting is simply that: bragging and boasting about fictitious situations that they hope they will never be in and that we also hope they will never be in. To present that in court as some kind of evidence of their associations and their behaviour is a slippery slope. If you want to destroy the relationship between young people, particularly young Black people, and our system, this would be the way to go.”
‘Compound Injustice: a review of cases involving rap music evidence in England and Wales,’ conducted by the University of Manchester, recently concluded that ‘rap music was being used as a procedural tool that can sweep young Black men and boys into group prosecutions for crimes they had no significant role in committing’. The study looked into 68 cases, featuring 252 defendants, and concluded that 84% of cases involved minorities, with a further 66% being Black people. A significant number of cases that used song lyrics as character evidence were also joint enterprise cases. There are arguments to suggest that joint enterprise is applied overwhelmingly in a disproportionate manner against Black defendants.
Amendment 62, if implemented, would not totally seek to remove song lyrics as potential evidence but would instead only permit the practice when it is directly relevant to the case. The government intend to await the outcome of a CPS consultation into the matter before deciding on whether to implement the act and will announce its next steps in due course.