Taxpayers have been left to foot a £19,000 legal aid bill for two men who cut down the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree, the Echo can reveal.
Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each jailed for four years and three months at Newcastle Crown Court after they were convicted of two counts of criminal damage on Tuesday (July 15) for felling the iconic landmark.
They were both found guilty after a trial in May of causing criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on September 28, 2023.
The Northern Echo can now reveal Graham and Carruthers legal aid bill, paid for by taxpayers, is estimated to have reached more than £18,600.
Legal aid allows those would could not afford expensive lawyers to still be represented in court. It is paid directly to solicitors and barristers, not the defendants.
The bill is expected to hit £18,674.28, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
That includes £3,325.14 for solicitors at court and at the police station.
A £7,490.34 bill for Carruthers' counsel at the trial was pending submission and waiting approval and payment, the FOI request response last month revealed.
Meanwhile a £7,858.80 total for Graham's barrister at the crown court was approved and waiting payment.
During the trial, the court heard the pair had driven more than 30 miles through a storm in the early hours of September 28, 2023, from their homes in Cumbria to the Northumberland landmark.
Armed with a chainsaw, they felled the 150-year-old tree, widely regarded as one of the most photographed and cherished natural features in Britain.
Their crime caused an estimated £622,191 worth of damage to the tree and £1,144 to Hadrian’s Wall.
They kept a wedge of the tree trunk as a trophy and spent the following day “revelling” in the media frenzy surrounding their “moronic mission”.
Graham, a groundworker from Carlisle, and Carruthers, a mechanic from Wigton, were described in court as “odd couple” friends who did everything together — including felling trees professionally.
The prosecution described the felling as an act they thought would be “a bit of a laugh”, but one that left them facing the wrath of the public and the full weight of the law.
Their camaraderie has since disintegrated.
During the trial, each man turned on the other in a bid to escape responsibility.
Graham claimed Carruthers took his Range Rover and mobile phone without permission, alleging Carruthers had a long-standing obsession with the tree.
In contrast, Carruthers dismissed the incident as “just a tree” and denied any obsession or prior planning.
A two-minute, 41-second video was also recovered from Graham’s phone showing the moment the tree was cut down.
Additional photos showed a chainsaw and a wedge of the trunk in his boot, though neither have been recovered.
The court heard that in the year following their arrest, the once inseparable friends grew bitterly divided.
In a December 2024 Facebook post, Graham publicly accused Carruthers of cutting the tree, branding him “the man with the hidden face”.
In a separate anonymous call to police, Graham attempted to pin full responsibility on his former friend.
Graham, who ran a groundwork business and lived at Milbeck Stables in Carlisle, told the court he had suffered from mental health difficulties since the death of his father, who took his own life.
He said Carruthers had supported him in the aftermath and had become his closest friend.
He worked at a turf farm and maintained machinery, claiming to be baffled by the national outcry.
But Judge Lambert dismissed their attempts to shift blame and accepted the prosecution’s case that both men had acted together in a calculated plan that showed “no regard for heritage, history or humanity”.
Both men had been remanded in custody before sentencing due to the severity of the offence and the widespread publicity, which the judge said posed risks to their welfare.
She noted that Graham had already spent time in custody due to protection concerns, and that Carruthers' partner had been followed to her home.
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The felling of the Sycamore Gap tree, which had stood proudly along Hadrian’s Wall for more than a century and inspired generations of visitors, photographers and filmmakers, including a scene in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, sparked a national wave of grief and fury.
Conservationists and politicians have since called for stronger protections for iconic trees.
In the wake of the incident, the government has been urged to create a national register of heritage trees to prevent such destruction from recurring.
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