The 300 -year -old Arce had its revenge, almost two years later. A jury from the Newcastle Court (England) has declared guilty to the British Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, for having carved the famous tree with a chain Sycamore Gap, A famous 200 -year -old Arce, especially from its appearance in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. During the trial, prosecutor Richard Wright described the vandalism perpetrated in September 2023 as “a stupid mission.”
In the eight days that the cause lasted a video of the moment was taught, although Graham and Carruthers denied at all times to commit this action. The Vandals traveled together to the place, in the Northumberland National Park, from their homes in the Carlisle area, about 40 kilometers. The investigation determined that they first marked the cut planned with silver spray paint on the trunk. Then, they cut a wedge to direct the fall of the tree, and finally section it transversely, according to the prosecutor. The video was recorded by Graham (although it was on both of them), while his crotch cut the trunk. It lasted 2 minutes and 40 seconds, and in the background the noise of the chainsaw is heard until the tree falls with crash.
The newspaper The Guardian It also points out that during the trial they showed evidence that both the phone and Graham’s car were used at the crime site. After the event, both shared newspaper holders in their messaging chats. They wanted to “laugh” and believed themselves “very funny and ready,” the prosecutor told the jury that declares them guilty. Men will be sentenced on July 15 for causing criminal damage to both the tree, worth 622,191 pounds (about 734,4000 euros), as well as the Adriano wall where it is posed, for 1,144 pounds (1,350 euros), which was also affected.
From their appearance in the adventure film starring Kevin Costner, tourists began to go to that place to photograph themselves next to the tree, until Graham and Carruthers committed arboricide, a case of “foolish vandalism”, according to the prosecutor. The Arce Sicomoro, who had reached 35 meters high, was almost 200 years old and was in the center of a depression next to Adriano’s wall, the Roman defensive fortification that this emperor built in the north of England in the second century, from the year 122 and declared a World Heritage of the UNESCO. It was so popular that there were those who used it in the background for a marriage request or to spread the ashes of a loved one.
In the trial, prosecutor Wright explained that his technique had shown that they carried out the action with “knowledge, determined and deliberately.” In fact, they took a part of the Arce as “trophy”, although this piece never recovered. Graham (who said that his mechanical business worsened by this public prosecution) blamed his partner, who explained that he thought that the other vandal would have borrowed his SUV and telephone while sleeping in his caravan after taking some sleeping pills. Carruthers’s defense, in turn, says he was not in the place and that he made no sense to commit this misdeed only five days after his partner gave birth to a baby, although the vandal did not understand the stir “only for a tree.” The prosecutor called them “a strange couple”, but whose friendship collapsed in the trial.
