News & Insights

The Gang Show – R v Oni & Others [2025] EWCA Crim 12

27/01/2025

In this article, Anjelica Smerin considers the authorities on drill music, gangs and violence.

In the recent case of R v Oni & Others [2025] EWCA Crim 12, the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm of one appellant and allowed an appeal against sentence in respect of two other appellants, all said to be members of Manchester gangs. Ademola Adedeji, aged 17 at the time, was found guilty at trial in 2021 on the basis of 11 messages sent in a group chat and evidence tendered by the prosecution of gang association through a video of a young black boy wearing a blue bandana and rapping.  Adedeji maintained he had been wrongly identified in the video at trial and during the appeal the court heard evidence from a man named Tyrone that he was in fact the person in the video who had been mis-identified as Adedeji. 

Adedeji’s conviction was rendered unsafe and quashed on the basis that this false identification had led to him being wrongly associated with the M40 group at trial. Having already served six and a half years imprisonment no retrial was ordered as any alternative sentence he might have received was likely to have been shorter than the time already served. 

JUSTICE’s recommendations 

Dr Tunde Okewale and Oliver Mosley acted on behalf of JUSTICE as third-party interveners in R v Oni, providing a report which covered wide ranging but interlinked topics: racial stereotyping, adultification of black and ethnic minority defendants and the misinterpretation of music, and in particular drill and rap music, as evidence of criminal behaviour or activity. The report concluded by providing the following five recommendations: 

  1. Mandate the use of accredited, independent experts for gang related evidence 
  2. Enforce the strict application of the Myers test
  3. Enhanced jury directions on the impact of gang-related evidence 
  4. Guidelines for the use of cultural evidence 
  5. Procedural safeguards against stereotyping 

Issues arising where music is used as evidence 

Three core issues come to the fore when analysing the use of music as evidence in criminal cases, regard being had to the case of R v Oni, the JUSTICE recommendations that followed, and academic research in this area. Firstly, the overrepresentation of the drill and rap genre above any other style or form of music and, stemming from that, the interrelation of music evidence with cases involving gangs and young black defendants. Secondly, the bravado and preoccupation with realism inherent in the drill genre, making it increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction. Thirdly, the extrapolation of meaning or indication of guilt by the police and prosecution counsel, who often do not sufficiently understand the language and social context of the music and the necessity for wholly independent experts. 

Whilst Adedeji’s appeal in R v Oni was won on the basis of wrong identification evidence rather than the specific admission of music appeal point, the court did emphatically state “It is vital in any case to avoid the unfair stereotyping of individuals, based on their race, as members of gangs” (102). 

Overrepresentation of drill music 

Professor Owusu-Bempah, who has written extensively on this topic, applied the following research model in her article The Irrelevance of Rap [2022] Crim LR 130 to provide an overview of relevant appeal cases from 2005 – 2021:

These cases were sourced through legal databases, namely Westlaw and LexisNexis, by using various search terms, such as “lyric” and “music video”. While case searches do not uncover every appeal case, 38 relevant cases were identified, 34 of which concern rap music, with the other four seemingly involving the use of other genres of music in criminal proceedings”.

Applying Professor Owusu-Bempah’s methodology to a Westlaw case search today identifies at least sixteen new relevant cases from the significantly shorter period of January 2021 – January 2025. Of those sixteen, eight make specific reference to the ‘drill’ genre (R v McKennon (Matthew) [2024] EWCA Crim 829, R v Ferguson (Alfie) [2023] EWCA Crim 1569, R v McNeil (Brandon) [2023] EWCA Crim 431, R v Heslop (Rajae) [2022] EWCA Crim 897, R v NHF [2022] EWCA Crim 859, R v Morris (Javanie) [2022] EWCA Crim 800, R v Dixon-Kenton (Shaveek) [2021] EWCA Crim 673). 

Additionally, twelve involve alleged gang association. Even without more robust research, including lower court authorities, these results indicate that despite considerable academic and media coverage (Channel 4, The Guardian) and campaigns by groups such as Art Not Evidence, the pervasive use of music videos and lyrics as evidence continues to rise. A recent study by the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester uncovered “68 cases between 2020-2023 that involved 252 defendants, the overwhelming majority of whom were Black or mixed race, in which rap music was used as evidence for serious charges – including murders.” These indicate a rising problem, with parallels to the use of joint enterprise, which last year became subject to a CPS pilot scheme to collect and scrutinise data to establish if certain ethnicities are overrepresented. 

Furthermore, despite the substantial list of authorities there has been a noticeable absence of explicit judicial scrutiny of the use of drill lyrics. The case of R v Lewis (Jermaine Nathaniel) [2014] EWCA Crim 48 remains the leading authority in providing guidance for when rap or drill material is admissible as evidence in a criminal trial. In fact, the case of R v Alimi [2014] EWCA Crim 2412 from the same year remains one of the only successful challenges to the use of drill music as evidence, in a case where the defendant appeared only as an extra in a drill music video.

Fact or fiction 

The frequency with which the genre of UK drill appears in criminal cases involving alleged gang-related violence is in no small part due to the primary subject matter of the music: “unforgiving lyricism about the extremes of disfranchised, hypermasculine adolescent life – nihilistic references to knife violence (often in the form of provocation and bleak, detailed descriptions of drug dealing) – fills nearly every song.” (Thapar in A Owusu-Bempah (2022) Prosecuting Rap: What does the case law tell us?). Furthermore, a drill musician’s success is often predicated on how authentically they can present themselves and therefore hyperbolic language and bravado necessarily follows.

Discerning audiences of the genre provide higher ratings to rappers whose lyrics, particularly in back and forth ‘diss’ tracks which are a hallmark of the genre, present a ‘perceived authenticity’ by including increasingly intense braggadocio and badinage (J. Ilan Digital Street Culture Decoded: Why Criminalizing Drill Music is Street illiterate and Counterproductive (2020) 60(4) British Journal of Criminology 994, 1001). How then are courts to distinguish fact from fiction in material which by definition involves realistic discussion of street violence and promotes itself through the ‘diss’ track narrative by invoking rivalry with other artists or groups. As Professor Owusu-Bempah clarifies:

“Despite the violent content, and persistent efforts by the media, politicians and criminal justice agencies to associate rap with crime, there is no empirical evidence to support claims that rap as a genre, or drill in particular, causes crime. This is not to suggest that no rapper ever commits the kind of crime they rap about, or that there has never been any link between violent lyrics and particular incidents of violence. However, the nature and implications of such links are incredibly difficult to identify and unpack, and participation in rap can be hugely beneficial, including by providing an alternative to crime.”

The necessity for careful legal directions in cases where drill music material has been deemed admissible is therefore clear and is echoed in JUSTICE’s third recommendation for a mandatory enhanced direction. R v Oni provided some clarity on this matter, explaining a correct direction would include reference to exaggeration: “the judge then concluded this part of the directions by turning to the lyrics, telling the jury that they had to exclude the possibility that they were unreliable as mere exaggeration, or were only reporting what others had said, or predated the conspiracy” [55]Ultimately, however, in R v Oni because it had been an agreed fact at trial that the M40 group were a gang as opposed to a drill music group the use of drill material to substantiate gang activity was not held to render the convictions unsafe. The Court of Appeal did indicate that carefully balanced directions are needed: 

“The judge had also identified the relevance of the drill rap for the jury saying that interest in drill rap did not mean that any defendant was guilty of the offence, and that it was relied on because the prosecution said that the music was being used to threaten the RTD gang and because it contained admissions about what had been done. The evidence given by some of the defendants that the lyrics were not to be taken seriously was also fairly put before the jury.” [111]

In the absence of unequivocal guidance on judicial directions to the jury in either the authorities or in the Crown Court Compendium, the precise correct approach remains unclear. A lack of clarity, in combination with the increasing use of this type of evidence, means that a piecemeal and uncoordinated approach is likely to be taken, leaving defendants in these cases with inconsistent and unclear outcomes.

Independent Experts 

One tool employed by the courts to shed light on the true meaning of drill or rap material is the use of independent experts. Independent and impartial expert evidence can undoubtably provide important insight and clarity to the criminal courts and their use should be encouraged. In fact, JUSTICE’s first recommendation is that accredited experts should be mandated in these cases to “ensure that such evidence is reliable, objective, and free from bias, thereby safeguarding against its misuse and enhancing the fairness of trials.” 

Additionally, there is an increasing trend for the prosecution to call police officers to provide expert evidence in these cases as ‘gang experts’. Undoubtably many police officers have detailed knowledge and understanding of gangs in local areas and can provide useful commentary. However, where officers are embedded in policing in a community and where the defendants may be known to them prior to charge there is a clear risk of confirmation bias. The YJLC’s Drill and Rap Toolkit specifically warns against this:

“A situation where the police only watch videos made by people they suspect of gang membership and watch the videos looking for evidence that will confirm their suspicions. It is considered that in this scenario the ‘selection and [the police] interpretation will be skewed in the direction of equating the use of language, dress and gestures associated with a particular gang with actual membership of the gang – as opposed to “braggadocio”, the adoption of a “persona” or an attempt to establish “authenticity” in the eyes of a knowledgeable audience.’” [page 11]

The recommendation by JUSTICE of a strict application of the Myers test could go some way to alleviate this. Myers v The Queen [2015] UKPC set out that police officers could be called to give expert opinion evidence with a number of provisions, namely that they can evidence a balanced body of specialised knowledge, understand that by tendering their evidence they are not part of the prosecution team but have a separate duty to the court to provide evidence to any propositions made. The YJLC toolkit further elucidates these requirements. Failure to strictly apply this test could allow evidence of high persuasive nature but (potentially) from a biased or not wholly independent source, to go in front of the jury. 

Next steps

Whilst the Court of Appeal did not make any ruling on the proposed recommendations tendered by JUSTICE they provide an informative starting point for consideration. The group Art Not Evidence have gone a step further by proposing legislative change in the form of the Criminal Evidence (Creative and Artistic Expression) BillThe authorities thus far have resisted providing commentary on any structural issues at play within the criminal justice system, possibly out of a concern for engaging in more overtly political discourse. Nonetheless, as R v Oni exemplifies, this is certainly an area where careful and precise decisions are required by both counsel and judiciary throughout the trial process and could therefore particularly benefit from lucid judicial ruling. 

Authors

Related Practice Areas

Popular Insights

Tom Edwards looks at the impact of the shift from Joint Enterprise to Common Purpose in the five years since…

Articles
19/08/2021

Ben Hargreaves explores the inherent challenges in the admissibility of sexual history in sex cases. Section 41 of the Youth…

Articles
20/04/2020

Silas Lee, pupil barrister, reviews the statutory regime on witness anonymity. Anonymous witness orders are most commonly sought by the…

Articles
11/01/2021

An analysis of the law on fitness to plead and stand trial in the magistrates’ courts: Silas Lee reviews the…

Articles
06/06/2021

Portfolio Builder

Select the practice areas that you would like to download or add to the portfolio

Download    Add to portfolio   
Portfolio
Title Type CV Email

Remove All

Download


Click here to share this shortlist.
(It will expire after 30 days.)