Readers respond to an editorial about the continuing use of rap and drill lyrics in courtrooms as evidence of guilt
I was very glad to see your editorial about the racist effects of assumptions about rap and related music (The Guardian view on rap and drill music: a song should not land the young in jail, 30 August). This has blighted the lives of many young black men, including those referred to in the linked article about the use of joint enterprise laws in the conviction of 11 teenagers for a killing carried out by one of them.
In 2016, the supreme court found that the principle used in prosecuting multiple defendants in many conspiracy and joint enterprise cases – known as “parasitic accessory liability” – had been wrongly applied for many years, with far too low a bar set for convictions. Parasitic accessory liability means that two or more people commit a crime (which may be minor) during which at least one of them commits another crime.
