Jurors shown video of moment 'Sycamore Gap tree was felled'

A jury was shown footage yesterday of what prosecutors said was the moment the Sycamore Gap tree crashed to the ground after being felled by a shadowy figure wielding a revving chainsaw.

- Mark Brown

Newcastle crown court heard the video was taken on the iPhone of Daniel Graham, one of two men accused of illegally cutting down the tree on Hadrian's Wall described by one witness as "totemic".

The video lasting 2 minutes and 40 seconds shows a silhouetted figure with a chainsaw cutting into a tree. Loud chainsaw noise can be heard before the tree is shown toppling to the ground.

Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, have denied being responsible for cutting down the tree, which had stood in a dip on the wall since the late 19th century. They also deny criminally damaging Hadrian's Wall.

Amy Sutherland, an intelligence analyst for Northumbria police, was asked about the evidence she had collated in order to produce a timeline of events.

Sutherland told the court the tree-felling video was in the downloads on Graham's phone and she had been able to get the coordinates of where it was filmed from the metadata. She said the coordinates were for Sycamore Gap.