TWO former friends who were found guilty of felling the famous Sycamore Gap tree have today been jailed for four years and three months.
Daniel Graham, 39, and 32-year-old Adam Carruthers, cut the well-known sycamore down during the early hours of September 28 2023.
Following a trial in May this year at Newcastle Crown Court, the two men showed no emotion as the unanimous guilty verdicts were heard by Mrs Justice Lambert, who then remanded them both into custody.
Despite overwhelming evidence against them, both Graham and Carruthers denied any involvement throughout that eight-day trial.
The pair appeared at Newcastle Crown Court again today to be told they would be put behind bars. The court also heard, for the first time, that both men had admitted to felling the tree.
As well as the four year and three month sentence, they also received a further six months – to be served concurrently – for the damage caused to Hadrian’s Wall.
The judge said the pair will be released no later than after 40% of their prison sentences, adding that Graham had been on remand since December, and Carruthers was held since being convicted in May.
Previously, prosecutor Richard Wright KC described the criminal act as a “moronic mission” and the “arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery” before slamming the defendants as displaying a “basic lack of decency and courage to own up to what they did”.
“Up and down the country and across the world, the reaction of all right-thinking people to the senseless felling of the Sycamore Gap tree has been one of sadness and anger,” he said.
“Who would do such a thing? Why would anyone do such a thing? Take something beautiful and destroy it for no good reason.
“Far from being the big men they thought they were, everyone else thought that they were rather pathetic.”
Superintendent Kevin Waring of Northumbria Police was equally scathing.
“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,” he said.
“At no point have the two men given an explanation for why they targeted the tree – and there never could be a justifiable one.”
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