On the first episode of a Mail exclusive podcast that follows the trial of the alleged fellers of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree, reporters Liz Hull and George Odling revealed what new piece of evidence silenced the courtroom.
Groundworker Daniel Graham, 39, and mechanic Adam Carruthers, 32, face two counts of criminal damage after the 100-year-old tree was chopped down using a chainsaw and crashed into Hadrian’s Wall on the night of September 28, 2023.
Both Graham and Carruthers deny the charges. Footage from the night in question was shown to jurors on Monday, with award winning crime correspondent Caroline Cheetham telling the podcast why the grainy video stunned those in attendance at Newcastle Crown Court.
The two-minute and 41-second video, taken from Graham’s phone, appears to show the moment the tree was felled. The prosecution asked police to digitally enhance the clip as it was originally too dark to see, recorded during the night.
‘You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom when that video was first played’, Hull described.
Her ‘The Trial’ co-host, George Odling, responded: ‘A lot of us in court watched the video with open mouths.
‘The video, which was taken from that mobile phone footage, is grainy, but it’s very shocking.
‘The court was told the footage was originally very dark, but video specialists had managed to enhance it so that you can make out the outline of the enormous tree and the silhouette of a man standing next to it.’
Prosecutors claim the ‘unmistakable sound of a chainsaw’ can be heard in the video.
The video clip was played to the court twice – once showing the dark, raw footage, and a second time after it had been enhanced by a police specialist.
Odling explained why the footage could prove damning to Graham and Carruthers’s defence.
He explained: ‘The prosecution said analysis of Daniel Graham’s iPhone 13 showed that the video was recorded on his phone, not sent to him, or downloaded from the internet, at exactly 32 minutes past midnight on September the 28th.
‘No less than three minutes later, a photograph was also taken on the same phone, which, although dark, appears to show the felled tree.
‘Metadata for the video and the photo was analysed by police and found to be a match for the location of the Sycamore Gap.’
The friends allegedly felled the tree in a matter of minutes having driven 40 minutes from Carlisle to the tree in the late hours of September 27 2023 in Graham’s Range Rover.
The damage caused by the tree’s felling was valued at £622,191 for the tree and £1,144 for the wall, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Richard Wright KC told the jury that the accused had engaged in a ‘moronic mission’ to commit an act of ‘mindless vandalism’.
The trial continues.
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