Two men accused of chopping down the famous Sycamore Gap tree return to court today after jurors heard they filmed the "moronic mission" and revelled in the aftermath. Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, are accused of driving from Carlisle to the Northumberland beauty spot in the middle of the night to fell the tree with a chainsaw.
Prosecutors say one man cut across the trunk with "expertise and a determined, deliberate approach" while the other recorded it on a mobile phone. They then sent messages to each other the next day about the story going "wild" and "viral", with prosecutors alleging they were "excited" at what they had done.
Opening the trial to jurors at Newcastle Crown Court, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the Sycamore Gap tree had stood for over a century in a dip next to Hadrian's Wall in the Northumberland National Park, becoming "a famous site, reproduced countless times in photographs, feature films, and art".
Mr Wright told jurors: "By sunrise on Thursday, September 28, the tree had been deliberately felled with a chainsaw in an act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage."
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