Trial told men 'revelled' in Sycamore Gap attack

TWO friends filmed themselves in a “moronic mission” to cut down the famous Sycamore Gap tree before keeping a wedge of the trunk as a “trophy” and “revelling” in their infamy when news broke the next day, a jury has heard.

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Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers are accused of driving from Carlisle to the Northumberland beauty spot in the dead of night to chop down the tree with a chainsaw.

Prosecutors say one man cut across the trunk with “expertise and a determined, deliberate approach” while the other recorded the felling on a mobile phone.

They then sent messages to each other the next day about the story going “wild” and “viral”, with prosecutors saying they were “excited” about what they had done.

Graham, 39, of Milbeck Stables, Carlisle, and Adam Carruthers, 32, of Church Street, Wigton, Cumbria, are each charged with two counts each of criminal damage - one to the tree and one to the ancient Roman-built wall which is a Unesco World Heritage Site on September 28, 2023. They deny the charges.

Opening the trial to jurors at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the Sycamore Gap tree had stood for over a century in a dip next to Hadrian's Wall, in the Northumberland National Park, becoming “a famous site, reproduced countless times in photographs, feature films, and art”.