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Metro
09-05-2025
- Metro
‘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. Up Next 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?' Up Next 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. Up Next 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. check our news page.
The Guardian
01-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Family owners of Bet365 weigh up potential £9bn sale of gambling empire
The billionaire Coates family behind Bet365 are weighing up a sale of their online gambling empire that could value the business at £9bn, the Guardian has learned. The company, headed by Denise Coates, has held talks with Wall Street banks and US advisers in recent weeks about a full or partial sale, sources familiar with the matter said. Informal discussions explored options for a potential sale, including a medium-term plan to float the business on a US stock exchange. One option on the table includes a partial sale to a private equity investor, with the Coates family retaining a stake before an eventual listing. It could also see a spin-off of part of the business, rather than a full listing of the Stoke-on-Trent-based firm. A second source said they were also aware of discussions with private equity groups about taking a pre-float stake. One person with knowledge of the talks said Bet365 had reached the 'beauty parade' stage, where companies sound out banks they think could help them extract maximum value from any deal. Bet365 did not return requests for comment. Selling Bet365 could net Denise Coates, 57, more than £5bn, based on her 58% stake. It would cap an extraordinary growth story rooted in the humble origins of a Portakabin in a Stoke car park. Under Coates's stewardship, Bet365 pioneered online gambling technology, coming from a standing start to eclipse far more established brands such as Ladbrokes and William Hill. In recent years it has expanded into the US, capitalising on a sports betting boom that began in 2018 when the supreme court overturned a decades-old federal ban on the practice. Since then, Bet365 has won the right to operate in 13 states and is pursuing new licences as more states introduce regulated betting. The Coates family have taken several steps recently that would make Bet365 more attractive to US investors. Earlier this year, the company announced it was pulling out of China, a market where its presence had stoked controversy because betting is illegal there. In August last year, Bet365 transferred ownership of Stoke City football club to John Coates, the brother of Denise. 'It would be very difficult to have China exposure given the level of scrutiny that might be applied in the US, and why would you have a football club attached, that's a family legacy,' said Paul Leyland, the director of the gambling consultancy Regulus Partners. He said a sale in the US was 'compelling for everybody', providing an exit for Denise Coates and, for cash-rich US investors, offering a proven success in a growing industry. 'There's more money chasing gambling than there are gambling companies that are investable,' he said. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The gaming consultancy Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG) estimates that revenues in US sports betting will soar from about $14bn last year to more than $23.3bn by 2029. Bet365 has a market share of about 2.5% and EKG believes it is aiming for a double-digit take. 'That is not an easy or cheap market to crack and potentially requires more funding to enable them to aggressively attack the opportunity,' said Alun Bowden, an EKG analyst. 'Now feels a very good time to explore exit opportunities, and the timing feels right with Denise turning 60 in two years' time.' EKG has previously valued Bet365 at up to $12bn (£9bn), based on typical valuations in the industry and the company's pre-tax profit of £627m last year, on revenues of £3.7bn. Denise Coates is already famed for the record-breaking pay and dividends packages by which she has extracted £2bn from the company she built. Since 2019, Britain's best-paid woman has increased her holding from 50.2% thanks to her parents, Peter and Deirdre, transferring their shares to her. Bowden said: 'For decades people have been telling me the one business they wish they could invest in was Bet365, and while there is a bit of an industry consensus that they are a fading star, they remain one of, if not the best, online sports betting business in the world, with huge headroom for growth in casino, the US and many other markets. I don't think they will have many problems.' Coates's father, Peter, the 80-year-old son of a miner, was a successful local businessman in the catering industry, who owned a string of betting shops. But it was Denise, an econometrics graduate, who at around the turn of the millennium became aware of the jackpot opportunity that lay online. She bought the domain name from eBay for $25,000 ($18,000) and borrowed against the bricks-and-mortar stores to develop sports betting technology that left slow-moving rivals in the dust. She is famously shy of publicity but in a rare interview with the Guardian in 2012 she said her family's story made them the 'ultimate gamblers'.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
On this day: eight-year-old Bonnie progresses in drivers' programme
On this day in 2024, the York Press reported that a then-eight-year-old from an East Riding of Yorkshire village had embarked on a journey that "could lead to sporting greatness." Bonnie Neilson, from Hayton near Pocklington, was selected to progress to the second round of a girls-only drivers' programme, which "could see the first female Formula One driver on the grand prix circuit since 1975." Her father, Mike Neilson, an IT Architect at Portakabin, said that he and his daughter were "glued to the TV screens during the racing season." On an Easter holiday trip Bonnie practiced on a 580 metre-long circuit at the TeamSport Leeds go-kart track, as part of a talent identification programme launched under the F1 umbrella. Bonnie, who was competing in a category of girls aged up to 12-years-old, crashed on the third corner of her first ever lap in a go-kart. Mr Neilson said: "She's always been really competitive, and, despite the big crash, after getting the OK from the marshals, she kept going and knocked 15 seconds off her lap times by the end of the third session of the day." Bonnie said: "I just went full speed and tried overtaking people." Mr Neilson said that the organisers sent an email soon after the event, in which they said that Bonnie showed real promise and invited her to the next round of the kart racing pathway, beginning with five coached sessions. The programme, called F1 Academy Discover Your Drive, aims to promote and increase female participation in motorsport on and off the track. Mr Neilson said he is looking for funding support as Bonnie moves up the pathway.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New substance misuse help centre to be built
Planning permission has been granted for a new £3.6m substance misuse centre. Proposals were submitted to Hartlepool Development Corporation last year to demolish the existing treatment centre in the town's Whitby Street, deemed not fit for purpose, and replace it with a single-storey hub on the same site. The new building has been designed to meet the "increasing demand" for help for drug and alcohol abusers, according to documents supporting the borough council's application. A report from development corporation planning officers said the new centre would be "bespoke for clinical interventions". Concerns had been expressed by council planners about the design of the building, which is to be constructed from modular Portakabin units. However it was ruled the benefits of the development to meet demand for services "provided weight in favour of the application". The development corporation report said: "The existing facility at Whitby Street is in a poor and deteriorating condition with its internal layout ill-suited to the needs of modern clinical practice. "The proposed development will provide a bespoke building for primary care-orientated clinical interventions in a clean and modern environment." Previously a new site had been proposed for Roker Street car park, but was scrapped in July 2023 following hundreds of objections, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@ Cost of new substance misuse help centre rises 'Recovery Festival' to break down addiction stigma Hartlepool Borough Council
