At 9:46 a.m. on Sept. 28, 2023, police officers in Northumbria, England, received a call about an unusual crime. A majestic, broad-leaved sycamore tree that had stood for some 150 years in a dip along Hadrian’s Wall had been cut down.
By the time the first officer arrived on the scene two hours later, several local people had gathered at the site, and news of the destruction was spreading.
Body-cam footage recorded by a local police officer, Peter Borini, showed him cordoning off the felled tree with blue and white police tape. The gray trunk had been sheared off close to the base, and the rest of the trunk and its dense canopy of leaves lay where it fell, sprawled over a portion of Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman fortification that stretches 70 miles across northern England.
In the footage, Mr. Borini can be heard gently urging upset onlookers to step back, “so we can gather as much evidence as we can.”
This was not, as one of the defendants in the case would claim during his trial, “just a tree.” Planted in the 1800s, the towering sycamore was a beloved symbol of the area and had featured in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
Standing in a natural hollow between two rolling hills, it had been the site of marriage proposals, family days out and pilgrimages by tourists. Its distinctive silhouette made it one of Britain’s most photographed trees.
Speaking to jurors during the trial of the two men accused of cutting it down, the prosecutor Richard Wright told Newcastle Crown Court the felling had caused “sadness and anger” around the world.
“Who would do such a thing?” he asked. “Why would anyone do such a thing? Take something beautiful and destroy it for no good reason.”
On Friday, a jury of twelve people gave their unanimous verdict on the first question, finding Adam Carruthers, 32, and Daniel Graham, 39, guilty of criminal damage.
The second question — why they cut the tree down — may never be answered. But evidence presented during the trial suggested the motive could simply have been banal: the cheap, empty thrill of vandalism and, perhaps, the desire to shock and create a spectacle.
Both men denied any involvement and provided no explanation to either the jury or to the police, instead inventing excuses for why evidence from cellphones, close-circuit television and traffic cameras placed them both at the scene.
“I wouldn’t say he’s a tree surgeon, but he’s keen.”
At the time when the Sycamore Gap tree was cut down, the two men were the “best of pals,” Mr. Graham acknowledged during the trial.
He owned a construction company on the outskirts of Carlisle, a city about 25 miles from the tree. Mr. Carruthers, who worked in property maintenance and was a mechanic, sometimes did jobs for him.
When Mr. Graham was interviewed by the police after his arrest in October 2023, he said Mr. Carruthers had performed “tree work” on his behalf. “I wouldn’t say he’s a tree surgeon, but he’s keen,” he added.
Mr. Graham admitted that he also cut trees down as part of his business. A video recovered from his cellphone showed footage of him felling a large tree with Mr. Carruthers a month before the sycamore was cut down.
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 2023, cellphone site data suggested Mr. Carruthers’ phone was within the vicinity of the tree, in what his co-defendant’s legal team said was a reconnaissance mission. Mr. Carruthers claimed he had been driving his partner to Gateshead — a city over 70 miles from their home — for a meal but had turned around because a child in the car was restless.
Hours later, at 10:23 p.m., he called Mr. Graham, and the two spoke for 1 minute and 18 seconds. What was said is not known, but at 11:29 p.m., Mr. Graham’s Range Rover was caught by a traffic camera traveling along a road that leads toward the Sycamore Gap.
“I’ve got a better video than that.”
An hour later, his cellphone was used to film a 2 minute 40 second clip. In the original footage, nothing can be seen in the darkness, but the buzz of a chain saw is followed by a loud crashing noise. An enhanced version of the same footage shows a figure working at the base of the tree before it topples backward and away from the camera.
Shortly after the footage was recorded, Mr. Graham’s Range Rover was caught on camera traveling back toward Carlisle. When Mr. Carruthers’ partner sent him a clip of their five-day old daughter being fed, he wrote back: “I’ve got a better video than that.”
In the early hours of the morning, Mr. Graham’s phone was used to photograph a chain saw and a large piece of wood in the trunk of his car. Mr. Wright said he believed the wedge had been kept as a “trophy” of the pair’s “moronic mission.”
He added that while prosecutors could not prove which man had cut down the tree, the evidence proved both Mr. Graham and Mr. Carruthers were at the scene.
“Whoever filmed the cutting down was as much responsible for the damage to the wall and the tree as the man wielding the chain saw — they were in it together,” he told jurors.
Evidence gathered from the defendants’ phones showed them sharing news coverage of the felled tree after it was found the following morning, with Mr. Graham sending Mr. Carruthers a WhatsApp voice note saying, “It’s gone viral — it is worldwide.”
In response to a Facebook post calling those responsible “weak” and condemning their “disgusting behavior,” Mr. Carruthers sent Mr. Graham a voice note saying that he would like to see the man who wrote it “launch an operation like we did last night.”
When questioned on the comment during his trial, Mr. Carruthers said the comment had been wrongly interpreted by the prosecution as an admission of guilt and that he meant to write “he” rather than “we.”
Mr. Graham claimed that he did not use his phone or car on the night of the felling, and that they were borrowed by Mr. Carruthers without permission.
“I was not part of this plan,” he told his trial. “I agree that my Range Rover and my phone were used. The wedge photos were taken in my yard, but I was not the other person involved.”
Mr. Graham phoned the police to report his former friend on Aug. 23 of last year. His efforts to make the call anonymous were thwarted by a detective who recognized his voice from previous interviews.
But Mr. Carruthers also denied involvement, telling the court that he was in his home with his partner and their newborn baby at the time.
The men will be sentenced on July 15, and each faces up to 10 years in prison.
A Sycamore Gap tree could already be flourishing again by the time they are freed. Last August, rangers spotted a few sprouts near the base of its stump, and seeds and genetic material gathered from it last year have also started to grow.
Amelia Nierenberg contributed reporting.
Source: nytimes.com
