Two men filmed themselves using a chainsaw to fell the famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall in an act of “mindless criminal damage”, a court has heard.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, embarked on a “moronic mission” to cut down in minutes a tree that had stood for more than 100 years, the prosecutor Richard Wright KC told Newcastle crown court.
The two men, from Cumbria, have denied two charges of criminally damaging the tree and Hadrian’s Wall, where it stood.
Wright said the tree had been in a dip in the wall in Northumberland national park. It had become “a famous site, reproduced countless times in photographs, feature films and art”, he said.
Graham and Carruthers travelled in Graham’s Range Rover from Cumbria in the late hours of 27 September 2023, the court heard.
“By sunrise on Thursday September 28, the tree had been deliberately felled with a chainsaw in an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage,” Wright said. “It fell on to a section of Hadrian’s Wall, causing irreparable damage to the tree itself and further damage to the wall.”
Wright said the people responsible were Graham and Carruthers, who, in the technique they used, showed “expertise and a determined, deliberate approach” to the felling.
He said: “First, they marked the intended cut with silver spray paint, before cutting out a wedge that would dictate the direction in which the tree would fall. One of the men then cut across the trunk, causing the sycamore to fall, hitting the wall. Whilst he did that, the other man filmed it, filmed the act on Daniel Graham’s mobile telephone.”
The jury was shown the phone footage, lasting two minutes 40 seconds, in which the chainsaw and the sound of the tree toppling can be heard and the silhouette of a figure using the saw can be seen.
The wedge was put in the boot of Graham’s Range Rover – “perhaps a trophy taken from the scene, to remind them of their actions. Actions they appear to have been revelling in,” Wright said.
“During that return journey Mr Carruthers received a video of his young child from his partner. He replied to her: ‘I’ve got a better video than that.’ Minutes later the video of the felling of the tree was sent from Graham’s phone to Carruthers’ phone.
“At the time of that text conversation the only people in the world who knew that the tree had been felled were the men who had cut it down.”
The next day the world’s media began reporting on the tree’s felling and the two men shared social media posts, Wright said, with Graham messaging Carruthers: “Here we go.”
Wright said Carruthers sent Graham a Facebook post from a man called Kevin Hartness saying: “Some weak people that walk this earth … disgusting behaviour.”
Two minutes later Graham replied to Carruthers with a voice note saying: “That Kevin Hartness comment. Weak … fucking weak? Does he realise how heavy shit is?”
Carruthers replied with his own voice note saying: “I’d like to see Kevin Hartness launch an operation like we did last night … I don’t think he’s got the minerals.”
Wright said this was “the clearest confirmation, in their own voices, that Carruthers and Graham were both responsible for the deliberate felling of the tree and the subsequent damage to Hadrian’s Wall.”
NEW//The prosecutor said messages between the two men talked about the felling of Sycamore Gap going “wild” and “viral”. Wright said: “They are loving it, they’re revelling in it. This is the reaction of the people that did it. They still think it’s funny, or clever, or big.”
Carruthers and Graham were once good friends, the jury was told, but not now. “That once close friendship has seemingly completely unravelled, perhaps as the public revulsion at their behaviour became clear to them,” said Wright.
He said each man may now be trying to blame the other.//ENDS
Graham, of Carlisle, and Carruthers, of Wigton, are jointly charged with causing criminal damage worth £622,191 to the tree. They are also charged with causing £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco world heritage site. The wall and the tree belong to the National Trust.
Graham and Carruthers deny all the charges against them.
The trial continues.
