#ExeterEmployability
Exeter Law School's Digital Employability Hub
#ExeterEmployability
Exeter Law School's Digital Employability Hub
Posted by #ExeterEmployability
8 September 2026Join Keir Monteith KC for a keynote and Q&A exploring the controversial use of music as evidence in criminal prosecutions. Drawing on real-life case studies, he will examine how lyrics, music videos and other forms of creative expression enter criminal proceedings; what is presented as “gang evidence”; and how such material is framed by the prosecution. The session will also consider recent legal developments and emerging case law, before providing an update on the Art Not Evidence campaign and its continuing work to prevent the prejudicial use of creative expression in court.
For further information, please contact Dr Louise Loder, Director of Employability at the University of Exeter Law School.
This event is open to all students of the University of Exeter.
Date: Tuesday 24 November, 17:00 – 19:00
Venue: TBC
Keir Monteith KC is a highly sought-after leading silk who represents clients facing heavyweight criminal allegations. He has defended in numerous murders, industrial-scale Class A drug importations, high profile National Crime Agency cases, £100M frauds, multi-million-pound confiscations, escape from custody cases and heavily armed Organised Crime Group conspiracies. Keir is ranked for criminal law in Chambers UK and the Legal 500. He is also ranked in Tier 1 for Fraud in the Legal 500. Keir is an Honorary Professor of Law and Simon Fellow at the University of Manchester. He is currently briefed in the Patisserie Valerie alleged £100M fraud trial where he is acting for the Chief Financial Officer
Recently the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred three murder convictions for clients he was representing back to the Court of Appeal. This is a very significant achievement as their referral rate is about 3%. Keir was lead counsel for Ade Adedeji in the Manchester 10 appeal that led to the quashing of Ade’s wrongful conviction. As a result, Keir was named as Lawyer of the Week in The Times newspaper. Keir also represented the lead defendant in one of the longest [23 months plus] multi-handed Class A drugs conspiracy trials – allegedly involving a machine gun, other firearms and a turnover of almost 1 metric tonne – 35M worth of cocaine.
Keir was instructed on a 4-month joint enterprise murder trial in the Old Bailey. He made excellent strategic decisions to ask no questions and not to call his client. This allowed him to make a powerful, eloquent and succinct speech underlining the lack of evidence against his client who was subsequently, quite rightly, acquitted of murder and manslaughter. Keir was then invited by APPEAL to write the foreword to their seismic report on the misuse of joint enterprise in the CJS and was interviewed by Channel 4.
For more information about the Art Not Evidence campaign, please visit their website here.
