Two men are facing lengthy jail sentences after they were convicted of cutting down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that stood for more than 150 years.
Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers caused more than £620,000 worth of damage to the tree and more than £1,000 worth of damage to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.
On 27 September 2023, the pair drove 30 miles through a storm to Northumberland from Cumbria, where they both lived, before felling the tree overnight in a matter of minutes.
Image: The Sycamore Gap tree before it was cut down. Pic: CPSThe pair each denied two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore and to Hadrian's Wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it, but were convicted by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.
The defendants, who didn't react when the verdicts were delivered, will be sentenced on 15 July.
The maximum sentence for criminal damage is 10 years and aggravating factors include whether it was done to a heritage or cultural asset and evidence of wider impact on the community.
Judge Mrs Justice Lambert remanded both defendants until they are sentenced and said they could face "a lengthy period in custody".
Tree's place in pop culture
The Sycamore Gap tree sat in a dip in the landscape and held a place in pop culture, featuring in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
It also formed part of people's personal lives, as the scene of wedding proposals, ashes being scattered and countless photographs.
Footage of the moment the tree was felled was played during the trial.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:28 Moment Sycamore Gap tree cut downIn the clip, the sound of a chainsaw can be heard, and the silhouette of a person can be seen, before the trunk eventually tumbled.
The footage was shot on Graham's iPhone 13, with the metadata providing the coordinates of the tree.
Read more:
What was possible motive for tree felling?
Part of tree kept as 'trophy'
Over the course of the trial, the pair blamed one another, but the prosecution argued they were both responsible for what the court heard was a "mindless act of vandalism".
As well as the video footage of the felling, an image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham's phone.
Image: Adam Carruthers (R) and Daniel Graham (L) worked together felling trees. Pic: CPS/PA Image: An image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham's phone. Pic: PARichard Wright KC, prosecuting, told the court: "This was perhaps a trophy taken from the scene to remind them of their actions, actions that they appear to have been revelling in."
Voice notes played in court
The jury was also played voice notes the pair had sent one another, commenting on the media coverage the incident was receiving.
In one of them, Graham, 39, said to 32-year-old Carruthers: "Someone there has tagged like ITV News, BBC News, Sky News, like News News News", before adding: "I think it's going to go wild."
Another piece of evidence was a photo of the defendants felling a different tree, about a month before the Sycamore Gap was cut down.
The prosecution said Graham, who owned a groundworks company and Carruthers, who worked in property management and mechanics, were "friends with knowledge and experience in chainsaws and tree felling".
From the beginning, much of the trial focused on the significance of the tree, with Judge Lambert telling the jury to put their "emotion to one side" before proceedings began.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:42 Voicenotes from Sycamore Gap tree trial'Mindless acts of violence'
Northumberland Superintendent Kevin Waring, of Northumbria Police, said: "We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism - but that term has never been more relevant than today in describing the actions of those individuals".
Graham and Carruthers gave no explanation for why they targeted the tree, he said, "and there never could be a justifiable one".
Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Susan Dungworth, 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".
Gale Gilchrist, chief crown prosecutor for CPS North East, said Graham and Carruthers took "under three minutes" to bring down the "iconic landmark" in a "deliberate and mindless act of destruction".
She said she hoped the community "can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted".
Image: Daniel Graham. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA Image: Adam Carruthers. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA'Enormity of the loss'
Reflecting on the verdict and the actions of the pair, Tony Gates, chief executive of Northumberland National Parks Authority, said: "It just took a few days to sink in - I think because of the enormity of the loss.
"We knew how important that location was for many people at an emotional level, almost at a spiritual level in terms of people's connection to this case."
The tree's stump still sits by Hadrian's Wall, where new shoots have been emerging.
Its largest remaining section will go on display at the National Landscape Discovery Centre in the Northumberland National Park later this year.
Read more from the trial:
'Moronic mission' to fell tree
Man told police he was 'framed'
The effort to preserve the tree's legacy also goes beyond the region where it stood.
Forty-nine saplings taken from the tree have been conserved by the National Trust. They will be planted in accessible public spaces across the country as "trees of hope", which will allow parts of the Sycamore Gap to live on.
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.3