Two former friends found guilty of cutting down world-famous Sycamore Gap tree
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Newcastle Crown Court heard the pair then kept a wedge of the trunk as a trophy and spent the next day “revelling” in news reports about their “moronic mission”.
Prosecutors said the “odd couple” who did everything together had thought it would be “a bit of a laugh”, but realised they “weren’t the big men they thought they were” when they saw the public outrage they had caused by committing “the arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery”.
On Friday, groundworker Graham, 39, and mechanic Carruthers, 32, were each found guilty of two counts of criminal damage – one to the much-photographed tree and and one to Hadrian’s Wall, which was damaged when the sycamore fell on it.
There was no visible reaction from either in the dock as the jury returned after just over five hours to convict them of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to the wall.
https://news.stv.tv/world/two-former-friends-found-guilty-of-cutting-down-world-famous-sycamore-gap-tree
Eviction grudge may have been motive for Sycamore Gap felling
Daniel Graham, who has been found guilty alongside Adam Carruthers, was facing removal from a plot that neighbours dubbed a ‘shanty town’
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Newly uncovered planning documents have suggested one possible motive for Graham to carry out the “arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery”, as prosecutors called it.
The documents revealed that at the time of the felling, Graham was facing eviction over environmental issues following a long-running dispute with the council, and his neighbours.
In 2015, Graham purchased a small plot of farmland in Grinsdale Bridge near the quiet Cumbrian village of Kirkandrews-on-Eden.
He quickly established a number of buildings on the property and gained planning permission for a stable block, horse shelter and storage units.
However, locals complained when Graham moved a caravan onto the site shortly afterwards, and began living and working there permanently.
Over several years, he developed the land, which he named Millbeck Stables, into a makeshift “shanty town”, from which he ran his business, DM Graham Groundworks, a company that lists tree clearance among its services.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/09/sycamore-gap-vandal-previously-accused-destroy-countryside/
Sentencing is due to take place on 15 July.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I must have planted many thousands of trees - a lot of pine, which isn't great, but also some well-planned mixed broadleaf which I'm quite proud of. I don't know if I could remember where the plantations were this many years on, but I've sometimes fantasized about revisiting some of them if I'm ever down south with time on my hands.
Planting could be gruelling on tough ground (most of it was tough - lots of flint and clay etc.), but my choice for a punishment detail would be weeding young plantations. It paid a pittance and was backbreaking and painstaking, especially in the heat of summer, as one wrong move with the brashing hook and you'd take out a sapling, which you'd have to take note of.
The weeds included brambles nearly as thick as my wrist. My hands were literally in tatters the whole time I was working at that, despite wearing gloves, and it gave me a fungal infection all over the backs of my fingers that took almost a year to get rid of.
When we weren't doing that, we were erecting rabbit and deer fencing - digging post holes in the most unyielding soil imaginable, then using ultra-heavy post drivers to hammer in the uprights was pretty testing, if muscle-building, especially if you had someone particularly burly and gung-ho on the other handle.
Eight hours a day of any of that starting at 7.30 a.m. for months on end, rain or shine, should be enough of a corrective for most people.
For planting, we used something like this, but a bit more basic:
You'd be given that tool and a quiver full of whips (for softwoods) or saplings (for hardwoods like beech) and set loose on rows of very hard-packed soil compacted by heavy machinery, usually recently clear-felled of old growth, each a few hundred yards long. We had a lot of ground to cover, so you couldn't spend much time on each tree. You'd drive the tool in as best you could and hope not to hit a boulder, which could give you a bit of a jar, wiggle it back and forth hoping to open up a slit, bend down and shove the roots in, stamp it down, then move on a pace or so to the next.
I think I can remember enough of where we planted to pick out some devilishly challenging terrain. Some of those plantations might be at least partially harvestable by now.
...would much prefer some of those implements to a gold plated shovel! 
Although they might not be so keen rock hard, impacted soil.