“One of the lads who have done it, Adam Carruthers, has got the saw back in his possession,” the muffled voice could be heard saying to the 101 operator.
That anonymous tip-off, made by Daniel Graham reporting his friend to police over the destruction of the Sycamore Gap tree, was the beginning of the downfall of a “best of pals” friendship that led to crime that prompted nationwide outrage.
Carruthers, 32, and Graham, 39, lived a 20-minute drive from one another in Cumbria and met some four years ago.
Their bond tightened quickly. When Graham’s father died, Carruthers, a mechanic, helped his new friend fix the chassis to a Land Rover Defender in time for the funeral. They began speaking every day on the phone, meeting up to four times a week.
One picture taken by Graham on his phone showed the pair working together on a tree project, while in another, a smiling Carruthers holds two owls.
But as the pair’s friendship blossomed, at some point, the seeds were planted for an ugly plan to chop down the iconic Sycamore Gap tree. On the night of 27 September 2023, as Storm Agnes battered the region, the pair set out on their mission.
Driving into Northumberland, they arrived at the much-photographed sloping dip in Hadrian’s Wall, which is home to the tree made famous by its inclusion in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. One took out a chainsaw to take down the sycamore, the other filmed the feat on a phone.
They then appeared to revel in what they had achieved. Graham messaged his friend “Here we go”, as the morning headlines started to roll. Then, later, sending another, saying: “Not a bad angle on that stump.”
But as the scale of the public revulsion became clear, and with the police closing in, the pair’s close friendship quickly unravelled.
Graham was the first to wield the knife in his friend’s back. During his police interview, he refused to name anyone responsible, but suggested he didn’t want to ruin someone’s life because he had a young family.
Carruthers’s partner had given birth to a baby in the weeks leading up to the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree.
Despite this apparent hint to detectives, the friendship appeared secure enough for them to walk to Newcastle Magistrates’ Court together, both wearing black masks, when first charged with criminal damage in May last year.
But then in August, three months later, Graham turned the screw.
He picked up the phone to call Northumbria Police and told the 101 operator that his friend had not only committed the crime, but also had possession of the chainsaw used, suggesting it could be at a workplace in Kirkbride.
He even warned police that Carruthers could be holding firearms, although neither the chainsaw nor any guns were found.
Then during the trial at Newcastle Crown Court last week, Graham, who always claimed to have been at home on the night of the felling, went a step further, telling a jury that Carruthers had confessed to him the day after the tree came down.
He also told the court that Carruthers and another man came to his home, asking if he would take the blame for the felling of the tree. The claim was described as a “work of fiction” by Carruthers’s legal representative.
Graham also claimed his friend took his Range Rover and his phone on the night the tree was felled, with both tracked to the Sycamore Gap.
Asked why he had turned on his best friend, Graham told the court: “When my business started to suffer, when I had to take my name off the wagons, take my name off the machinery, because I couldn’t leave my vehicles by the roadside.”
Carruthers, who never directly blamed Graham for the felling of the tree but also made no admission, said the pair’s friendship ended when Graham came to his workplace and accused him of “grassing on me”.
Summing up the case, prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the odd couple were “in it together from first to last”, and neither was big enough to own up for fear they would be made public enemy number one.
After both were found guilty of criminal damage to the Sycamore Gap tree and a section of Hadrian’s Wall, it’s doubtful either will feel any love lost toward each other when they are sentenced, nor will the general public.
Source: independent.co.uk
