Overview

• The Newcastle upon Tyne court found Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers guilty of deliberate criminal damage for felling the two-century-old Sycamore Gap tree and damaging adjacent Hadrian’s Wall ruins.
• Judge Christina Lambert sentenced them to four years and three months in prison on July 16, 2025.
• Prosecutors secured the conviction thanks in part to a mobile phone video filmed by the defendants during the vandalism.
• The court also ordered the confiscation of the phone used to record the crime and the Range Rover employed in the operation.
• The Sycamore Gap tree, a UNESCO World Heritage–listed landmark featured in films and named England’s 2016 Tree of the Year, had drawn widespread public outrage when it was felled in September 2023.