The men who chopped down the iconic Sycamore Gap tree were investigated over homophobic attacks days before it was felled.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were arrested after a bag of icing sugar was hurled into a man’s car at a layby used by gay men seeking sexual encounters.
When Graham was arrested for the Sycamore Gap outrage, rumours began sweeping his village that he was being interviewed in connection with the murder of a gay man in Carlisle.
These proved groundless but police were at the time looking closely at him and Carruthers over a series of attacks in the layby at Brampton, Cumbria, about 20 miles from Sycamore Gap.
After a year the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action, citing evidential issues.
A black ‘jeep’ had been reported to officers from Cumbria Police from a witness to the layby attacks – and its number plate varied by just one letter from Graham’s black 2009 Range Rover, which he and Carruthers used in their ‘moronic mission’ to Sycamore Gap.
The icing sugar attack occurred on September 18 2023 – just nine days before the Sycamore Gap vandalism.
The victim of the incident told the BBC: ‘There was a knock on my window. I looked across and there was this black jeep, so I wound my window down and the passenger got quite homophobic with me.’
A bag of icing sugar was then thrown into the man’s car before the other vehicle was driven off.
The victim said he had reported the incident to police the same night, giving officers a description of the vehicle and his recollection of the registration number.
He was, however, unable to give a positive identification of the men involved.
The man said he wished police had used similar number plate recognition cameras that snared Graham and Carruthers for Sycamore Gap.
He added: ‘They knew the date, they knew the type of vehicle it was, but they didn’t do anything.’
Cumbria Police said checks had been carried out using the registration number provided by the victim, but the car had not been in Cumbria that night.
However the registration plate differed by a single letter.
The force said that it had been a ‘complex investigation and all evidential opportunities were explored.’
When police investigated the case they found video footage on a phone belonging to one of the suspects which – according to the victim – showed ’10 or 12′ similar attacks on gay men at the same layby in Cumbria.
In April last year the man was shown the videos, which showed homophobic abuse being shouted and in some cases objects being hurled.
He said a video of another male victim, who he recognised, was particularly upsetting, saying: ‘I could see the fear in his eyes. It was quite nasty, and it was all homophobic.’
After helping police identify some of the other men in the videos, and confirming his own appearance in some of them, he gave a formal statement in August 2024 but told police he could not definitively identify the driver.
Cumbria Police confirmed two men were arrested on suspicion of ‘two assaults motivated by hate.’
In December 2024 a case was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service relating to three victims across six offences.
But the CPS decided against bringing charges due to insufficient evidence, difficulties identifying the perpetrators and too much time having elapsed since one of the incidents.
The victim who spoke to the BBC says he was abused on two separate occasions. He decided to challenge the CPS decision, which meant he had to be told the suspects’ names.
In emails to the victim, detectives describe the CPS decision as ‘disappointing’ and name Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers as the suspects.
The victim said: ‘I knew the names were in my mind somewhere. I Googled it and my words were ‘oh my God’, I realised who they were.’
Despite his appeal, the initial ruling not to charge the men was upheld.
The CPS said it encouraged victims of hate crime to report incidents to the police and that it would prosecute whenever its legal tests were met.
A spokesperson from Cumbria Police said ‘Cumbria Police can confirm we received two reports of assaults, motivated by hate, reported to have taken place near Brampton between September and October 2023.
‘Enquiries were carried out including vehicle checks against a registration number provided by the victim, however this established the vehicle related to the registration number provided had not been in Cumbria.
‘Following further enquiries two men aged 39 and 32, were later arrested in connection with the incidents.
‘Cumbria Police thoroughly investigated each allegation of homophobic abuse reported.
‘This was a complex investigation and followed multiple lines of enquiry to gather evidence and establish the circumstances of the reports.
‘Following all evidential opportunities being explored and enquiries conducted, a comprehensive case including four other crimes, was prepared and presented to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a charging decision in December 2024.
‘The CPS found insufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution.’
A spokesperson for the CPS said they had also considered a charge of criminal damage in relation to an egg being thrown at a car but no further action was taken.
The spokesperson said: ‘On 2 December 2024, Cumbria police provided a file of evidence in relation to an assault on 20 September 2023, an assault and criminal damage on 6 October 2023 and homophobic abuse and criminal damage on 18 September 2023.
‘Our prosecutor carefully considered the evidence in respect of each incident and determined that that there was insufficient evidence to charge any of the available offences, partly due to the passage of time which meant certain offences could not be legally brought, even if evidence was available.
‘Following a request from the victim to reconsider the decision, a further review was conducted, which agreed with the previous review – that there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
‘We have explained our decision in full to the victim.
‘We would always encourage any potential victims of hate crime to come forward and report to police and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met.’
When Daniel Graham was arrested in October 2023, neighbours believed he had been questioned about the murder of Paul Taylor, 53, from Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, who died earlier that month.
Mr Taylor, a married man, had interest in sex with men and had been using the Grindr app to arrange secret dates.
A neighbour of Graham’s in Grinsdale Bridge, near Carlisle, said: ‘When the police started searching Graham property, everyone thought he had been arrested in connection with Paul Taylor’s murder.
‘I don’t know how that started but his body was eventually found in woods five miles from here.
‘It proved to be wrong and someone else was convicted for it, but when it turned out they were looking into the death of a tree and not a person that turned out to be quite a surprise.’
Graham was not connected to Mr Taylor’s murder, which eventually saw Jack Crawley, 20, of Carisle, sentenced to life with a minimum term of 37 years.
During a police interview about the Sycamore Gap attack, Graham reacted angrily to a suggestion from a detective that his ‘best pal’ Carruthers would stay over at his caravan.
In the interview, which was played during the trial, Graham said: ‘Are you trying to say we are poofters or something? No he doesn’t stay over, definitely not.’
Graham, from Grinsdale Bridge, and Carruthers, of Wigton, both Cumbria, are on remand awaiting sentence for criminal damage to the Sycamore Gap tree and Hadrian’s Wall on July 15.
Jurors found the pair guilty after their friendship degenerated and they tried to pin the blame on each other in court. The verdicts were delivered after five hours of deliberations.
They drove for 30 miles through a storm, then filmed themselves cutting down the iconic landmark in the early hours of September 28, 2023. Carruthers then forwarded the video to his partner as they fled the scene.
The following morning, when news broke of the vandalism, the pair shared social media posts about the tree with Graham saying to Carruthers ‘here we go,’ as they ‘revelled’ in news reports about the crime.
Graham and Carruthers were found guilty of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Both defendants stared straight ahead and showed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were read to the court.