The Sycamore Gap tree trial and Britain’s tyranny of twee

Which is a more serious crime: cutting down a tree, or possessing child pornography? Hacking down a sycamore, or ringleading a grooming gang that drugs and rapes children? To most level-headed people, the answers should be relatively simple. Yet in the case of Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers – the men convicted of felling the Sycamore Gap tree – Britain’s justice system has once again demonstrated its detachment from our most basic moral instincts.

This week, Graham and Carruthers were sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court to four years and three months in prison for cutting down the beloved tree, which has stood in a picturesque dip along Hadrian’s Wall for about 100 years. This makes them the first men in the history of England’s ancient legal system to have been jailed for damaging a tree.

Now, to be clear, this vandalism should undoubtedly be punished. On 27 September 2023, the pair – described by Justice Christina Lambert as ‘experienced’ tree surgeons – drove to Sycamore Gap, arriving shortly before midnight that evening. Carruthers marked the trunk of the tree with spray paint before using a chainsaw to fell it, a process which Graham filmed on his phone. Despite both men pleading not guilty, they were convicted by a jury of two counts of criminal damage – the second relating to collateral damage to the historic wall – after an eight-day trial in May.

For Justice Lambert, Graham and Carruthers hadn’t just destroyed a well-known tree – they had also attacked Britain itself. She said that for people who ‘love this country’, the tree embodied the UK’s ‘untamed landscape’ and had become a place of ‘special personal significance’. Throughout her sentencing, Lambert said her ‘focus must be upon the social impact of the offence’ (which given the lack of actual victims, was just about the only impact she could focus on). She described the aftermath as one of ‘widespread shock and bewilderment’, which ‘extended far beyond those who had visited the tree or for whom it had a personal resonance’.

The National Trust’s Andrew Poad submitted to the court what was referred to, incredibly, as a ‘victim impact statement’ – something usually reserved for an actual human victim of crime, or a member of their immediate family. Poad described the crime as ‘unprecedented’, ‘overwhelming’ and ‘beyond comprehension’, and asked why ‘anyone would do this to such a beautiful tree in such a special place’.

The sentencing of Graham and Carruthers reflects a peculiar, yet growing, trend in the British justice system towards twee sentimentalism over objectively and dispassionately applying the law.

Take Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, the two RAF engineers who removed a statue of Paddington Bear from a park bench in Newbury, Berkshire, earlier this year. The pair pleaded guilty to criminal damage and accepted fines of £2,275 each. Like Justice Lambert, the sentencing judge Sam Goozee appeared gripped by emotion when dishing out the punishment. He accused Heath and Lawrence of desecrating a ‘beloved cultural icon’. Notoriously, he described its theft as ‘the antithesis of everything Paddington stands for’. He seemed to be punishing them primarily for crimes against a vague, rather naff idea of Britishness.

These two cases provide more evidence of the increasingly warped priorities of our justice system. Yes, of course vandals should be punished. But did Graham and Carruthers really deserve a harsher sentence than former BBC presenter Huw Edwards, for example? Last year, Edwards was found to be in possession of Category A child pornography, which depicts ‘penetrative sexual activity’ involving a minor. His six-month sentence was suspended for two years, meaning he hasn’t and is unlikely to spend any time in prison. Was Graham and Carruthers’ crime even vaguely comparable to that of Qari Abdul Rauf, the head of a Rochdale grooming gang? He was given a six-year sentence for raping and trafficking a 15-year-old girl, but served only two years and six months – that’s a year-and-a-half shorter than the sentence given out to two people who cut down a tree.

Graham and Carruthers did a stupid thing, and deserve much of the public opprobrium that is heading their way. But questions must be asked about a justice system that treats a couple of idiots worse than paedophiles and sex traffickers. A justice system that is swayed by sentimentalism is not worthy of the name.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.