Pair who felled Sycamore Gap tree are jailed for their crime

Vandals sentenced for criminal act on much-loved landmark

- 

The two men who felled the tree at Sycamore Gap have each been jailed for four years and three months.

Former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were convicted of criminal damage to the much-loved tree, which had stood for more than 100 years in a fold in the Northumberland landscape.

They were also convicted of criminal damage to Hadrian’s Wall, caused when the sycamore fell on the ancient monument in September 2023.

Mrs Justice Lambert sentenced the pair, who have been held in custody following their trial in May, at Newcastle Crown Court on Tuesday.

At trial, Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told jurors the pair had engaged in a “moronic mission” to cut down the landmark, travelling for more than 40 minutes from their homes in Cumbria, then carrying their equipment across pitch black moorland during a storm back in September 2023.