Two men were sentenced to prison on Tuesday for felling Britain’s beloved Sycamore Gap tree in 2023, an act that a judge said had caused a “sense of loss and confusion across the world.”
The men, Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each handed sentences of four years and three months during a hearing in Newcastle, in northeastern England.
Under British sentencing rules for the offense they committed, criminal damage, the men could have been sent to prison for as little as six months, but Judge Christina Lambert said the “extraordinary social impact” of their crime had made it necessary to increase their punishment.
Judge Lambert said that the Sycamore Gap tree had been a “landmark” for Northumberland and “a symbol of the beauty of its untamed landscape,” and that for many it had been a “place of special personal significance” as the site of marriage proposals and memorials for loved ones.
She said that what had been a haven of “peace and tranquillity to which people returned year after year” was deliberately targeted by Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Graham, who then “reveled in their notoriety” as news spread of what they had done.
The tree, which stood in a picturesque dip along Hadrian’s Wall, the 70-mile fortification that once guarded the northern edge of the Roman Empire, was found illegally cut down in September 2023.
Planted in the 1800s, the towering sycamore was one of Britain’s most photographed trees and featured in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
Mr. Graham, who owns a construction company, and Mr. Carruthers, who worked in property maintenance and mechanics, denied felling the tree during the trial but were both convicted of criminal damage in May.
Judge Lambert said that after being convicted, both men admitted to probation officers that they had been “present and involved” in the episode but still tried to minimize their culpability.
Mr. Carruthers said that he was the person who chopped down the tree but that he had “no idea why” and “could offer no explanation” after drinking a bottle of whiskey on the night, the judge said.
Mr. Graham admitted that he had driven to the site and filmed the felling but “tried to heap as much blame as possible” on his friend and claimed that he thought the plan was a “fantasy” that Mr. Carruthers would not go through with.
Judge Lambert said that she did not accept their claims as being “wholly honest or the whole story,” adding that elements were “not plausible” in light of the events.
The judge said that it was still not possible to know the full reasons for the tree’s being felled, but that carrying out the action at night and in the middle of a storm “gave some sort of thrill” to both men, as did the media coverage.
Judge Lambert said that she was confident that a “major factor was sheer bravado” but added, “Whether bravado and thrill-seeking are the full explanation I do not know.”
The prosecutor Richard Wright had told the trial at Newcastle Crown Court that the two friends drove to the site from the nearby city of Carlisle and committed the “act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage” together on the night of Sept. 27, 2023.
Jurors were shown footage taken on Mr. Graham’s cellphone of the tree being felled under the cover of darkness. The phone also contained photographs of a wedge of wood next to a chain saw in the trunk of his Range Rover.
Evidence obtained from the pair’s phones showed them exchanging messages and voice notes on the international media coverage of the felling the following day.
The men were each sentenced for two counts of criminal damage, which relate to the tree and to the section of wall it fell on. Hadrian’s Wall is a UNESCO world heritage site.
Although both men were given a sentence of four years and three months, they will serve only 40 percent of that time inside prison because of a temporary government policy in Britain to ease extreme overcrowding.
Mr. Graham has a long list of previous convictions dating back 18 years. His past offenses include violence against a former partner, threatening people in public, and “cutting up a large quantity of wooden logs using a chain saw” and stealing them in 2007, according to prosecutors.
Judge Lambert noted that Mr. Graham had suffered childhood abuse and had recurring depression, but said that she did not believe this had affected his actions on the day and so did not consider it a mitigating factor.
On Friday, a nearly seven-foot piece of the Sycamore Gap tree’s trunk was erected as part of a permanent art exhibition inside the center welcoming visitors to the Northumberland National Park. On the remaining stump, two miles away, new shoots are already growing.
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