Two men found guilty of chopping down iconic UK tree

The jury at Newcastle Crown Court found former friends Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, guilty of criminal damage after the 2023 felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap, which had stood for nearly 200 years next to Hadrian's Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern England.

Groundworker Graham and mechanic Carruthers were each found guilty after around five hours of deliberation of two counts of criminal damage -- one to the sycamore and one to the Roman wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it.

Prosecutors told court the two men cut down the tree with a chainsaw "in an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage," which they filmed on Graham's phone and then shared with others.

Prosecutor Richard Wright said the pair drove to the site near Hexham in Graham's Range Rover and felled the tree on the night of September 27, 2023, slicing through the trunk in "a matter of minutes".

"Having completed their moronic mission, the pair got back into the Range Rover and travelled back towards Carlisle" where they lived, he said.

He said a video of the act recovered from Graham's phone was shared by the two men with "the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw, and a tree falling".

The next day, in a voice message from Graham to Carruthers, Graham said "it's gone viral. It is worldwide. It will be on ITV news tonight," 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," he added.

The pair were jointly charged with causing GBP 622,191 ($832, 821) of criminal damage to the tree and GBP 1,144 of damage to Hadrian's Wall, an ancient Roman fortification stretching from northwest to northeast England.