Two groundworkers have been found guilty of cutting down Britain’s most famous tree.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, face up to ten years in prison for felling the Sycamore Gap tree and causing damage to Hadrian’s Wall in the process.
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.
The pair, both from Cumbria, filmed themselves felling the iconic landmark during a ‘moronic mission’ in the early hours of September 28, 2023.
Carruthers then forwarded the video to his partner while they drove away from 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.
Prosecutors said the pair thought it would be ‘a bit of a laugh’ – but 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’.
Graham and Carruthers were found guilty of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree as well as causing £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. Carruthers sat with hands clasped in front of him, while Graham lifted a hand to his face and stroked his beard.
The sycamore had stood for more than 100 years and achieved worldwide fame when it was featured in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.
A man named Kevin Hartness posted about the tree on Facebook, writing: ‘Some weak people that walk this earth; disgusting behaviour.’
Carruthers sent this post to Graham, and later sent a voice note in which he said: ‘I’d like to see Kevin Hartness launch an operation like we did last night… I don’t think he’s got the minerals.’
In August last year, Graham made an anonymous phone call to the police in an attempt to implicate his friend and save himself.
Officers instantly recognised his voice as he told them that ‘one of the lads that [did] it, Adam Carruthers,’ had taken his chainsaws back home.
The ‘anonymous caller’ said if police searched Carruthers’ home and workshop they would find the saws and part of the felled tree, along with a shotgun and a pistol.
No firearms, chainsaws or the tree wedge were found, however.
On December 1, 2024, days before the trial was originally scheduled to begin, Graham took to Facebook to accuse Carruthers of felling the tree, posting a series of images of his former friend.
‘I truly would not do it,’ he wrote.
‘It’s my picture everywhere. Well, here’s a picture of the man with [the] hidden face.’
In a tense exchange with Mr Wright during his cross examination, Graham tried to justify turning on his friend.
He said Carruthers and an associate had tried to intimidate him into taking the blame for cutting down the tree, insisting that the criminal justice system would be lenient towards him due to his mental health issues.
He added: ‘If someone is costing me money and affecting my business then I will f***ing grass. ‘No doubt about it he [Carruthers] is the one holding the chainsaw. Adam felled the tree, I don’t know 100 per cent who the other person was.
‘I was annoyed about my business suffering through his actions.’
To explain away number plate and phone site evidence against him, Graham insisted that Carruthers and an accomplice had taken his car, with his phone inside, and driven to the Sycamore Gap without his knowledge while he had been sleeping in his caravan.
Carruthers, for his part, did not directly accuse Graham of being involved in felling the tree.
But he insisted that on the evening the tree was felled he had tried to take his partner and young children for a meal at the Metrocentre in Gateshead but turned back because their 11-day-old baby was unsettled.
Jurors rejected these flimsy alibis and found the pair unanimously guilty of causing criminal damage worth £622,191 to the tree and £1,144 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco world heritage site owned by the National Trust.
They now face up to ten years in prison.
Known to some as the Robin Hood Tree after its appearance in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film, Sycamore Gap was one of the most photographed trees in the country.
It stood next to Hadrian’s Wall near Crag Lough in Northumberland and is believed to have been planted in the early 18th century.
It is said to have once stood alongside others but eventually became the only one left – making it especially photogenic.
In Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the hero – played by Costner – is seen pulling leaves from the tree as he walks under it with the warrior Azeem, who is played by Morgan Freeman.
The tree also featured in the music video for American star Bryan Adams’ hit (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, which was the soundtrack for Costner’s Robin Hood film.
In 2003, the tree escaped damage when a helicopter that was filming documentary series British Isles – A Natural History crashed less than 100 feet away.
The four onboard the aircraft were injured, but presenter Alan Titchmarsh, who was standing on the ground, narrowly escaped harm.
Titchmarsh said at the time: ‘I was pretty shaken and I was worried the copter was going to explode. The crew scrambled out and ran like hell.’
An eyewitness added: ‘Alan Titchmarsh was very lucky not to be hit.
‘He was almost underneath the helicopter when it fell but jumped out of the way as it came down.
‘The aircraft landed on its side and everyone, including Alan, ran to help. Everyone was amazed the crew were not seriously hurt.’