Overview

• Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, are each serving four years and three months after their July 15 conviction for criminal damage to the Sycamore Gap tree and Hadrian’s Wall.
• Investigators relied on a tip-off, ANPR data and digitally enhanced footage from Graham’s phone to trace the crime, and court evidence included photos of a missing trunk wedge kept as a trophy.
• The combined cost of the 18-month police inquiry, legal aid, National Trust response, court proceedings and incarceration is estimated at nearly £1 million to taxpayers.
• The National Trust has relocated seeds and cuttings from the felled tree to a secure Devon greenhouse and expects a substantial number of viable saplings to emerge.
• Campaigners and lawmakers are intensifying demands for stronger protections and the creation of a national register to safeguard heritage trees.