Show caption Micah Bedeau was among the five members of the 1011 gang to be arrested last year while carrying machetes and baseball bats. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images London London drill rap group banned from making music due to threat of violence Court order for five members of west London group 1011 criticised by anti-censorship activists Ian Cobain Fri 15 Jun 2018 17.44 BST Share on Facebook

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A drill rap group in London has been issued with a court order that bans them from making music without police permission.

In what is being described as a legally unprecedented move, members of a group called 1011 have been banned from mentioning death or injury, and from mentioning named postcodes in a gang context.

They must also notify police within 24 hours of releasing new videos and give 48 hours’ warning of the date and location of any performance or recording and permit officers to attend.

The court order was condemned by the campaign group Index on Censorship, which said it could create a precedent that caused problems for other artists. “Banning a kind of music is not the way to handle ideas or opinions that are distasteful or disturbing,” said the chief executive, Jodie Ginsberg.

“This isn’t going to address the issues that lead to the creation of this kind of music, nor should we be creating a precedent in which certain forms of art which include violent images or ideas are banned.

“We need to tackle actual violence, not ideas and opinions.”

The Metropolitan police denied the court order amounted to censorship.

Members of 1011 are in a gang and had been imprisoned after admitting a conspiracy to commit violent disorder.

Police also hinted that they may ask the courts to issue more such orders. A Scotland Yard spokesperson said that the orders were increasingly being considered.

Yonas Girma, 21, Micah Bedeau, 19, Isaac Marshall, 18, Jordan Bedeau, 17, and Rhys Herbert, 17, all from west London, are serving jail or detention sentences of between 10 months and three-and-a-half years.

They were arrested in Notting Hill, west London, last November while armed with three machetes, a large knife and two baseball bats, along with masks, balaclavas and gloves.

The five men told Kingston crown court they were about to make a drill music video, but police believe they were about to launch an attack on members of a rival group called 12 World.

The court heard that members of 12 World had threatened Micah Bedeau’s grandmother after she entered Shepherd’s Bush, which they regarded as their territory.

A video of the incident was uploaded onto YouTube. In the clip, played in court, they said: “Micah come get your grandma, she’s lacking [without protection] on our strip. You’re lucky I don’t rock [punch] her face.”

Recorder Ann Mulligan issued the criminal behaviour order at the request of the police. It is active for three years. The judge said their arrests averted a “very serious violent incident” between two gangs.

It also prevents the men from making any reference to the death of Teewiz, the nickname of Abdullahi Tarabi, 19, who was stabbed to death in Northolt, north-west London, in April last year.

UK drill is a cousin of Chicago drill, and is a sub-genre of rap. Its lyrics not only describe gang warfare, but sometimes include threats and taunts against named gangs and individuals.

Groups frequently make videos of themselves performing the songs, and post them on YouTube and other internet sites where they are viewed tens of thousands of times.

Earlier this year the Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, warned that disputes conducted by young people on social media can escalate quickly and violently.

In May, YouTube took down around 30 music videos following a request from the Met.

DCS Kevin Southworth said: “We believe this to be one of the first times, if not the first time, we have succeeded in gaining criminal behaviour orders that take such detailed and firm measures to restrict the actions of a gang who blatantly glorified violence through the music they created.

“We’re not in the business of killing anyone’s fun, we’re not in the business of killing anyone’s artistic expression – we are in the business of stopping people being killed.