2 men who cut down UK’s beloved ‘Robin Hood Tree’ jailed for over 4 years
Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers used a chainsaw to slice through the trunk of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian’s Wall
Two men found guilty of the “mindless” and “deliberate” felling of one of the UK’s most iconic trees, which sparked national outrage, were on Tuesday jailed for more than four years.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court found former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, guilty in May of criminal damage for the 2023 felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap.
It had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco World Heritage site in northern England. The tree was so striking that it featured in the 1991 Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Sentencing the pair at the same court, Judge Christina Lambert said their actions had involved a “high degree of planning and preparation” and caused widespread “shock and bewilderment”.
For those who lived in the county the tree had become “a landmark, a symbol of the beauty of its untamed landscape”, she said.
Graham and Carruthers each received a sentence of four years and three months. Both men were convicted on two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore and to the Roman wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it.
