A London drill group has been issued with a court order which bans them from making music without the police’s permission. The restrictions are a legal first in the UK.

Five members of west London’s 1011 must now seek permission from Scotland Yard before recording or performing music, following an unprecedented ruling at Kingston Crown Court. They are also banned from writing lyrics which “encourage violence”.

Stringent criminal behaviour orders (known as CBOs) have now been imposed on the group for the next three years. As well as the ban on encouraging violence, 1011 are also forbidden from making reference to their own gang or rival gangs in their music or on social media, as well as referencing post-codes in a gang context, reports ITV. The unprecedented restrictions also say that 1011 must not possess balaclavas or attend Notting Hill Carnival.


Additionally, they may not reference to the death of Abdullahi Tarabi in their music. The 19-year-old was fatally stabbed in west London last year.

Micah Bedeau, Yonas Girma,Isaac Marshall, Jordean Bedeau and Rhys Herbert must notify police 24 hours in advance of releasing any video, and must give 48 hours warning of the date and location of any live performance.

The Metropolitan Police’s Trident gang unit applied for the criminal behaviour orders after the group members were convicted of planning a machete attack. They were arrested last November after being found with machetes, baseball bats and a knife.

Police say that 1011 were planning a retaliation attack on Shepherd’s Bush’s 12-World gang after they posted videos online which showed them harassing the grandmother of Micah and Jordean Bedeau, The Independent reports. Scotland Yard investigated the group for two years, and claim that their music is ”clearly and only designed to incite violence and provoke each other”

Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of Index on Censorship, criticised the ban. “Banning a kind of music is not the way to handle ideas or opinions that are distasteful or disturbing. 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.”