By Brian Melley
London (AP) – The jurors in the case of two men responsible for cutting the Sycamore Gaping tree which was once held along the old Hadrian wall in northern England did not return a verdict Thursday after several hours of deliberations.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal damage. The old friends each declared that they were at home that evening and were not involved.
Judge Christina Lambert told Newcastle Crown jurors runs to take as long as they were to render unanimous verdicts in the trial that started on April 28.
The jurors started the deliberations just before noon and were sent home just over four hours later without returning a verdict. They resume the deliberations on Friday.
The tree was not the largest or the oldest in Great Britain, but it was prized for its picturesque setting along the old wall built by the Hadrian emperor in AD 122 to protect the northwest border of the Roman Empire.
The tree had long known to residents but reached international fame in Kevin Costner’s film in 1991 “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”. He was sitting symmetrically between two hills along the historic wall and was a draw for tourists, landscape photographers and those who take selfies for social media.
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File-A general view of the stars above Sycamore Gap before the Perseid Meteor shower above the Hadrian wall near Bardon Mill, England, Wednesday August 12, 2015. (AP photo / Scott Heppell, file)
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File-A general view of the stars above Sycamore Gap before the Perseid Meteor shower above the Hadrian wall near Bardon Mill, England, Wednesday August 12, 2015. (AP photo / Scott Heppell, file)
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The prosecutors said that the value of the tree exceeded 620,000 pounds ($ 830,000) and damage to the wall, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was evaluated at 1,100 pounds ($ 1,460).
Prosecutor Richard Wright told the jurors in his closing argument that the men cut the tree for “a little laughter” in the darkness of the night during a windy storm on September 28, 2023, but had not achieved the indignation they would arouse in “the arboreal equivalent of the insane brass”.
“They woke up the day after the next day and quickly realized – when the media arrived, when the public’s indignation became clear – he had to have trained them that they could not see any other smiling,” said Wright. “Far from being the great men they thought to be, everyone thought they were rather pathetic.”
The two men had once been the best friends. But during the trial, Graham blamed Carruthers and another man for having cut the tree, saying that they had tried to frame it by taking his car to the crime scene and using his phone to film the video of the tree.
Andrew Gurney, Carruthers lawyer, said that Graham’s story did not add up and that he was planning his guilt on his former friend.
“Is it a chain of plausible events or has the desperate story of a man caught up?” Said Gurney.
Wright made fun of the duo’s defense, saying that common sense and a trace of evidence should lead jurors to condemn them for their “agonizing mission”.
The prosecutors showed a grainy video of the reduced Graham tree phone – a video sent shortly after on the carruthers phone. The metadata has shown that it was taken on the site of the tree in the Northumberland National Park. The data has shown that the Graham Range Rover had traveled there.
Wright said he couldn’t say who cut the tree and held the phone, but the two were the only ones in the world to have the video on their devices.
The text messages and vocals exchanged the next day between Carruthers and Graham captured their excitement while the story became viral.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
