Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each jailed for four years and three months by Newcastle Crown Court on 15 July after a jury found them guilty of criminal damage for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree and damaging Hadrian’s Wall. Prosecutors said the pair caused about £620,000 in losses when they felled the landmark with a chainsaw and filmed the act. The sycamore, estimated to be 150–200 years old, stood in a dip beside the Roman-era wall in Northumberland and gained international fame after appearing in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” Graham and Carruthers drove more than 30 miles from Cumbria in the early hours of 28 September 2023, using storm winds to help topple the tree and taking a wedge of its trunk as a trophy. Sentencing the men, Mrs Justice Christina Lambert said their motive was “sheer bravado” and rejected Carruthers’s claim of “drunken stupidity.” She found both defendants equally culpable, noting that they appeared to relish the media attention that followed the felling. The case is believed to mark the first time in the UK that custodial sentences have been imposed for illegally destroying a single tree. The National Trust, which owns the site, said the loss of the tree was irreplaceable but reported new shoots emerging from its stump. A six-foot section of the trunk is to be displayed near its former location, while saplings grown from collected seeds are being nurtured for future planting.