Sycamore Gap accused puzzled over 'just a tree'

SYCAMORE Gap felling accused Adam Carruthers said he couldn’t understand the huge outcry over the destruction of what he labelled ‘just a tree’ and said the reaction was ‘almost as if someone had been murdered.

- ROB KENNEDY

Carruthers is alleged to have taken a chainsaw to the world-famous sycamore in Northumberland along with Daniel Graham, damaging it and Hadrian's Wall, next to which it had stood for more than a century.

Mechanic Carruthers, 33, and ground worker Graham, 39, both deny causing criminal damage in September 2023 and are standing trial at Newcastle Crown Court.

Giving evidence yesterday, Carruthers was asked why he showed so much interest in the story the day after the tree was cut down.

He said: “On the morning I woke up I had looked online and it was all over Facebook. I was thinking ‘what's going on here?’ It was everywhere.

“My understanding was it was just a tree, I couldn't understand why everyone was sharing it, every second post, it was about this tree. I just couldn’t get my head round it.

“The way it was travelling through the news, I was amazed how something so small could create so much publicity.”

Asked by his barrister, Andrew Gurney, why he and Graham had been messaging each other about the story, Carruthers said: “I couldn’t really understand why there was such a major outbreak - it was almost as if someone had been murdered. It was everywhere, do you know what I mean?”

Carruthers said that in September 2023 he was staying with his partner of 10 years in Kirkbride, Cumbria, as she had just given birth to their daughter by Caesarean section and needed help looking after their two children.