‘Moronic' friends guilty of chopping down iconic 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree
Two friends who filmed themselves cutting down the famous Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian's Wall during a 'moronic mission' have been found guilty of criminal damage.
Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers drove 40 minutes at night to reach the remote spot in Northumberland, in September 2023.
They took just 2min 41sec to fell the centuries-old tree in a 'mindless act of vandalism', jurors at Newcastle Crown Court were told.
The pair took a wedge of the trunk as a trophy and spent the next day 'revelling' in news reports about the crime.
Each man denied any involvement, despite video footage of a man felling the tree with a chainsaw being found on Graham's phone, along with messages gloating about what they had done.
It has now emerged that the crime could have its roots in a planning row, with Graham, 39, facing eviction at the time.
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Town hall bosses in Cumberland had rejected his application to live in his caravan at Millbeck Stables at Grinsdale Bridge, near Carlisle, months earlier in April 2023.
Graham also ran his business from the caravan, with neighbours objecting to the 'large commercial vehicles' which would drive in and out of the rural site.
In planning documents, the parish council objected to his application, saying that neighbours and planning officials had 'felt threatened by the dominant and oppressive behaviour displayed by the proposer'.
Another neighbour complained of the countryside at Grinsdale Bridge, near another section of Hadrian's Wall, 'being destroyed'.
Graham, who had lived on the site since he bought it in 2016, had told planning officials then he would use the caravan as a 'tea/bait room' but had instead lived in it without authorisation.
Council tax had not been paid on the caravan, planning documents said.
The planning row continued after Graham was first arrested when, just over a month after he and his former friend Adam Carruthers, 32, committed their act of 'deliberate and mindless criminal damage', the 39-year-old applied for permission to build a hay store and tractor shed.
Neighbours objected again, with one saying Graham's property was an 'illegal builders' yard'.
Another objection noted Graham's 'demonstrable prolonged disregard for planning control'.
Carruthers, who was also convicted of criminal damage on Friday, often worked with Graham in his landscaping business.
Neighbours told The Telegraph 'it wasn't worth confronting' Graham.
One said: 'The field used to be peaceful countryside and he came in, put in a Portakabin and started building. He didn't bother waiting for permission – he just went ahead and did it and moved in.'
Another told the newspaper: '(Graham) completely destroyed the look and peace of this area. It was unbelievable that he managed to establish a home there on what had previously been a green field.
'Now people have to look at this shanty town he's created and has tried to hide by bulldozing a wall of earth up to head height as shelter.
'It is an eyesore and a blight on a beautiful area.'
Some locals now believe the crime was part of Graham's quest for revenge.
'It's what everyone around here was saying and it makes perfect sense,' one told the Sun.
'He considered that caravan his permanent home and had asked the council to legally recognise that.
'When they refused the only way it could ever have ended for him was being evicted.
'He's a tree surgeon, he cuts trees down all the time – what better way, in his eyes, for him to take revenge?'
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The council issued Graham with an enforcement notice over the 'unauthorised sitting of a caravan for residential use' in September 2024, which he appealed against.
Planning inspector Mark Harbottle dismissed the appeal on April 28, the day before the Sycamore Gap trial began.
Graham, whose address was still listed as Millbeck Stables, according to the Crown Prosecution Service, made no visible reaction when the jury returned after just over five hours to convict him and Carruthers of two counts of criminal damage.
Prosecutors said Graham and Carruthers were the 'odd couple' who did everything together had thought it would be 'a bit of a laugh'.
But they soon realised they 'weren't the big men they thought they were' when they saw the public outrage they had caused by committing 'the arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery'.
Both were each found guilty of two counts of criminal damage – one to the much-photographed tree and one to Hadrian's Wall, which was damaged when the sycamore fell on it.
There was no visible reaction from either in the dock as the jury returned after just over five hours to convict them of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to the wall.
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The trial heard the 'totemic' sycamore had stood for more than 100 years in a dramatic dip in Hadrian's Wall, becoming a popular spot for everything from picnics to proposals – and achieving worldwide fame when it was featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.
Opening the case to jurors, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said: 'Though the tree had grown for over a hundred years, the act of irreparably damaging it was the work of a matter of minutes.'
Jurors heard Graham and Carruthers were 'best of pals' at the time and regularly worked together felling trees.
The court heard Graham's Land Rover was picked up on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras between Carlisle and Sycamore Gap at night on September 27, 2023, and returning early the next morning.
His phone was traced to cell sites making the same journey.
When police arrested the pair and searched Graham's phone, they found a two minute and 41 second video which showed the sycamore being cut down at 12.30am on September 28, and had been sent to Carruthers.
They also found photos and videos of a wedge of tree trunk and a chainsaw in the boot of Graham's Range Rover, although these have never been found.
Messages and voice notes between Graham and Carruthers the next day showed them talking about the story going 'wild' and 'viral', referring to 'an operation like we did last night' and joking that damage looked like it had been done by a professional.
But, Mr Wright said, by the time their trial started 18 months later, the pair had 'lost their courage' and their once close friendship had collapsed, with each apparently blaming the other.
Graham accused Carruthers of taking his Range Rover and mobile phone to Sycamore Gap that night without his knowledge.
He said he had now turned on his former friend because his business was being affected by Carruthers' actions.
Graham claimed during his evidence that Carruthers had a fascination with the sycamore, saying he had described it as 'the most famous tree in the world' and spoken of wanting to cut it down, even keeping a piece of string in his workshop that he had used to measure the circumference.
Carruthers denied this and told the court he could not understand the outcry over the story, saying it was 'just a tree'.
Cross examining Carruthers, Wright asked him: 'Is that what's at the heart of this?
'You thought it was 'just a tree', and when the rest of the world didn't think it was 'just a tree' and it was a terrible and wicked thing to have done, you've lost your bottle and can't own up to it?'
They will be sentenced on July 15.
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The pair called the police and arranged for the true owner to be at the shop when the suspected thief returned, but he 'saw the police, turned on his heels and ran' before officers could arrest him,' Hann says. Sitting beneath dozens of bikes dangling from racks on the ceiling of the former Victorian coach house, he recalls a recent incident where a woman was paying for her son's bike to be fixed when it was swiped from directly outside the shop. The business sits on the edge of one of the two worst hotspots for bicycle theft in England and Wales. In the three years to September, more than 1,300 thefts were reported to police and locals believe the figure is a vast under-estimate. Of the recorded crimes, 98 per cent went unsolved. Cyclists who have had their bikes, or parts of them, stolen are frequent customers of Hann's. While he is speaking, a young woman walks in asking for Hann to check over her bike, which no longer works properly after being recovered from a thief. Other customers come in with their bikes missing wheels, or with broken chains and frames from where criminals have tried to physically break locks. 'It happens on an almost daily basis,' Hann says. 'Even if people use D-locks round the post, the thieves have got portable angle grinders now.' He believes there is a roaring trade in both stolen bicycles and parts, including wheels and saddles, which are being sold for cash by people with drug and alcohol abuse issues. Hann reports any crime he suspects to the police, but rarely gets a response. 'I think there is less enforcement than there used to be,' he says. 'I'm not blaming the police, I'm blaming austerity – they've got less resources and they've got to choose their battles. 'But some people don't have a car, and their bike is their only means of transport. It's despicable.' Nationally, fewer than one in 50 of the 60,000-plus annual bike thefts are ever solved. Vast areas of England and Wales did not see a single individual punished for such criminality last year. Back in Cardiff, grey and drizzly weather hasn't deterred numerous cyclists from whizzing along segregated lanes around the city centre, and pedalling through nearby Bute Park. In the busy Queen Street shopping area, broken D-locks and chains lie on the damp ground by empty bike racks, with the bicycles once attached to them long gone. Inside the nearby Bike Lock cafe, founder Tom Overton is well aware of the risks, having had his own bike stolen six times before starting the business two years ago. It offers secure storage for up to 50 bicycles, alongside showers and facilities for office workers and train commuters. 'We're giving people peace of mind,' the 52-year-old says. 'A lot of people who use us come in and say, 'I had a bike and I got it stolen a few weeks ago'.' Overton believes that bike theft will increase as Cardiff becomes more cycle-friendly, with the spread of segregated cycle lanes and infrastructure. 'More and more people are cycling, so theft is going up and up,' he adds. 'I think there's also more confidence among the criminals that they will get away with it, coupled with fear in people over making a citizens' arrest.' Overton only remembers reporting one of his six bike thefts to the police, and believes the official figures are a 'huge underestimate' of the problem. South Wales Police has been distributing advice on how to prevent theft by double-locking bikes, removing wheels and saddles, using secure parking and registering or marking bikes so they can be recovered. 'We share concerns about bike thefts in Cardiff and welcome proposals by Cardiff council to improve the availability and security of cycle parking across the city,' a spokesperson said.
Scottish Sun
6 days ago
- Scottish Sun
My sister took her own life after making sick pact with online chat room stranger who flew over from US to watch her die
Aimee had been a happy child but withdrew into an online forum during the pandemic 'RABBIT HOLE OF DESPAIR' My sister took her own life after making sick pact with online chat room stranger who flew over from US to watch her die Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A WRITER has described how a man flew from the US to watch her sister take her own life after meeting on a "sick" online forum. Adele Zeynep Walton, 26, told how her sister Aimee was discovered dead by cops in a hotel room in October 2022. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Adele and Aimee Zeynep Walton, pictured as children Credit: instagram/@adele_walton 5 Adele Zeynep Walton, 26, described how her sister was found dead after being on an online forum Credit: instagram/@adele_walton 5 Adele and Aimee seen together as little kids Credit: instagram/@adele_walton Aimee, who was just 21-years-old at the time, was found with a total stranger, who had flown from the US to watch her die. The sisters - who were raised in Southampton, Hampshire, both had active online lives growing up, but Aimee more so. Adele said that Aimee, who was neurodivergent, was bullied as a teenager and turned to online communities instead. When the pandemic hit, Aimee withdrew even further into the online world, her sister - writing in The Telegraph - explained. She broke up with her boyfriend and spent an increasing amount of time in her room. The first Covid lockdown in England was announced in March 2020, and the third was on January 2021. It was in October 2022 that Adele - who was 25 at the time - and her parents were told that Aimee was dead. Aimee was found in a hotel room in Slough, Berkshire, 60 miles away from her home - with a stranger. They had met through a sick online forum that "partners" up people looking to end their own lives. This forum was also how she got her hands on the substance that killed her - reportedly from Kenneth Law, who has been linked to 88 deaths in the UK. According to The New York Times, the forum was founded by two men who run several "incel" websites. Adele took it upon herself to visit the thread and said many of the posts said: "Your family don't care about you" and "You should do it." She told The Guardian that the man who was with her little sister could have been "living out a sick fantasy as an incel who wants to see a young and vulnerable woman end her life'. The man told police he had been working for the 11 days he spent in the hotel room with Aimee. Adele wrote in The Telegraph: "This forum has taken at least 50 UK lives, including my sister. "From looking at the forum myself, I can see just how easy it is to end up in a rabbit hole of despair, where vulnerable users are told their loved ones don't care about them. "Being informed by police that Aimee died in a hotel room with a stranger who she met on this forum, and who flew from the US to witness her death, still haunts me." Adele now campaigns about the harms of the online world and has written a book called Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World. If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123. 5 The pair grew up in Southampton, Hampshire Credit: instagram/@adele_walton
