Two Men Convicted of Chopping the Famous Sycamore Gap Tree
In Newcastle, the two men convicted of chopping the famous sycamore gap tree, Crown Court Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal damage but were found guilty.
Two Men Convicted of Chopping the Famous Sycamore Gap Tree
Both Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers had also been found guilty of damaging the tree for more than £ 620,000 and £1000 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
The couple drove 30 miles in a storm to Northumberland from their Cumbrian home on the 27th September 202,3, where both previously lived before they cut the tree down overnight in a couple of minutes.
The pair both pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore, and the sycamore was also damaged the sycamore when it fell on them, which destroyed Hadrian’s Wall, but following a five-hour trial, the jury found both guilty of the charges on Friday at Newcastle Crown Court.
The Sycamore Gap tree occupied a niche in the landscape, where there was a dip, and it had a role in pop culture, the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
It also entered people’s private lives as a background to proposals of marriage, ashes spread on the ground, and scores and scores of photographs.
Images of precisely when the tree was felled were played in court.
The sound of the chainsaw can be heard in the clip and the silhouette of a person can be seen before the trunk finally tumbled.
The recorded video was taken with Graham’s iPhone 13, and the files contained metadata of the location of the tree.
The Tree Part Kept a ‘Trophy’.
In the trial, the pair baffled each other, but the prosecution raised the fact that they were equally responsible for a “mindless act of vandalism,” which the court heard.
Above and beyond the video footage of felling there was also an image of a bit of wood and a chainsaw that came up on Graham’s phone.
Prosecuting Richards Wright KC told the court: “This might have been a trophy which had been removed from the place to remind them of their doings which they, it is quite likely, had taken pleasure in. “This may have been a trophy taken away from there to remind them of their doings, which they would seem to have taken delight in.
Voice Notes Played in Court: Two Men Convicted of Chopping the Famous Sycamore Gap Tree
Also the jury heard the voice notes from the pair to each other, commenting on how media attention is being paid to the incident.
When Carruthers received a list of names in one of them, Graham, 39, said: “Someone there has tagged like ITV News, BBC News, Sky News, like News News News”, he said, “I think it’s going to go wild”.
Another fact was a photo of the defendants chopping down a different tree, roughly a month before Sycamore Gap was felled.
The prosecution said to the jury, Graham (owner of a groundworks company) and Carruthers (worked in property management and mechanics) were “friends with knowledge and experience in chainsaws and tree felling”.
From the word go therefore, there has been so much noise about the importance of the tree because Judge Mrs Justice Lambert instructed the jury to put their “emotion to one side” before the hearing commenced.
‘Mindless Acts of Violence’
“It is not known where the dog has been kept and what sort of conditions it has been subject to.” Northumberland Superintendent Kevin Waring, Northumbria Police, said. “We tend to hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism – but that term has never been more apt to describe the activities of such individuals”.
And Graham and Carruthers provided no reason why they must have shot at the tree, “and there never could be a justifiable one”, he added.
Susan Dungworth, the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, called the felling of the tree “unfathomable” and said, although “there was no remorse from the defendants, there was compelling evidence, and now there will be justice”.
The chief crown prosecutor for CPS North East, Gale Gilchrist, told the court that Graham and Carruthers “took “under three minutes” to destroy the ‘iconic landmark’ in a “deliberate and mindless act of destruction”.
She had said she hoped the community “can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted”.
‘Enormity of the Loss’
There was something to be said by the Chief Executive of Northumberland National Parks Authority, Tony Gates, about the verdict and the things that the couple did, this being: It just sunk in in just a few days – I suppose, because of the strength of the loss.
“We knew how crucial that location was, to many people, on an emotional plane – almost on a spiritual plane – in terms of how people relate to this case”.
Read More From the Trial: Two Men Convicted of Chopping the Famous Sycamore Gap Tree
Two moronic men were sent to destroy Sycamore Gap tree.
Man allegedly complained to police he was being ‘framed’ over tree felling.
Defendant claims friend wanted to cut down the world’s tallest tree. The agenda was.
Jurors handed in voice notes on the case of the Sycamore Gap tree trial.
The stump of the tree found its way still at Hadrian’s Wall, from where they began to shoot.
The rest of its area will be unveiled at the National Landscape Discovery Centre in Northumberland National Park this year.
Just like its history’s inheritor, the successor also majors in futility beyond the boundaries in which it stood.
The National Trust has been looking after forty-nine saplings from the tree. They will be placed, as “trees of hope”, in public places where they can be seen all over the country, and some balls and parts of the Sycamore Gap will still carry on living.
Those defendants who failed to respond following their verdicts will be sentenced in July.
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