Should Drill Lyrics Be Used in Court? Met Police Defends Evidence

The Metropolitan Police has defended the use of drill music lyrics and videos as evidence in criminal prosecutions, as campaigners press the UK government to introduce stronger legal safeguards against the use of creative expression in court. The debate centres on whether rap and drill material can provide legitimate evidence of criminal behaviour or whether its use risks encouraging unfair assumptions about artists, particularly young black defendants.

Police officers have argued that lyrics, music videos and other material may sometimes contain information directly connected to real-world offences. Campaign group Art Not Evidence, however, says creative work can be misunderstood and taken out of context by investigators, prosecutors and juries who lack sufficient knowledge of drill music and its cultural background.

Daily Dazzling Dawn understands that the dispute has intensified following growing concern over the number of criminal cases in which rap and drill material has been presented as evidence.

A report by the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity found that drill rap lyrics were used as evidence against 252 defendants between 2020 and 2023. The findings have added momentum to calls for legislation establishing a presumption that creative expression should not normally be admissible in criminal proceedings.

Art Not Evidence, a campaign involving lawyers and academics, is lobbying for changes designed to prevent artistic material from being treated as evidence unless there is a clear and direct connection to the alleged offence.

The Metropolitan Police has rejected the suggestion that music should automatically be excluded. Detective Sergeant Matt Corbin, who gives evidence in court as a police expert on drill music, said the force considered it important to retain the ability to use such material in appropriate cases.

Speaking about serious violence, Corbin said there were individuals who had committed “horrendous and atrocious acts” and that police wanted to use relevant material to help secure convictions. He said that where someone chose to include truthful or criminal information in their music, investigators could seek to rely on it as evidence.

The Metropolitan Police has sought to draw a distinction between the genre itself and the possible evidential value of specific material.

Corbin acknowledged concerns surrounding artistic freedom and said the force did not want to “demonise any particular genre of music”. He also accepted that lyrics and videos must not be overused in court proceedings.

The issue is particularly sensitive because drill music frequently employs fictionalised narratives, exaggerated imagery and references drawn from wider street culture. Campaigners argue that artistic conventions can be mistaken for literal confessions or evidence of gang involvement.

Art Not Evidence has warned that what it describes as “gang aesthetics” may be interpreted at face value by people who do not properly understand the genre. The group argues that clothing, language, gestures and musical references can be given a criminal meaning despite having limited relevance to the offence being tried.

The campaign has also raised concerns about racial disparities within the criminal justice system, arguing that the use of drill lyrics against young black defendants may reinforce existing prejudicial assumptions and discourage freedom of artistic expression.

Daily Dazzling Dawn learned that campaigners are now seeking statutory safeguards requiring judges and courts to consider carefully whether creative material is genuinely relevant, reliable and proportionate before it is placed before a jury.

The debate has also been shaped by the experience of families affected by serious violence.

Valentina Locci, whose 15-year-old son Leonardo Reid was killed in Islington, north London, by gang members, has supported the use of drill lyrics where they can help establish the truth about a crime.

Locci said hearing songs containing references to a person’s death could be deeply distressing for grieving relatives. She argued that if individuals were willing to write publicly about a dead person, the material should be capable of being considered by a court when it could assist efforts to deliver justice.

Her position highlights the central difficulty facing policymakers: protecting artistic freedom while ensuring courts are not prevented from considering material that may have genuine evidential value.

Art Not Evidence said it welcomed the Metropolitan Police’s recognition that caution and safeguards were necessary when rap and drill material was presented to juries.

However, the campaign group questioned whether the current protections were sufficient. It said experience had shown that creative expression could still be used in ways that encouraged prejudicial assumptions about criminality or gang membership, even when the material had little or no meaningful connection to the alleged offence.

The group is calling for clear statutory safeguards to ensure music and other creative expression are admitted only when they are demonstrably relevant and reliable and where their potential prejudicial impact does not outweigh their evidential value.

For the Metropolitan Police, the argument remains that courts should retain access to material that may help explain or prove serious criminal conduct. For campaigners, the priority is ensuring that an artistic performance is not mistaken for a factual confession.

The growing debate over drill lyrics now places renewed attention on how the UK criminal justice system distinguishes between creative expression and evidence of real-world wrongdoing — and whether Parliament should set clearer legal limits on where that line is drawn.