A man who sawed down a village Christmas tree “as a joke” and hid the tool behind his fridge freezer has been spared jail time.
Dylan James McNamara used a bow saw to bring down Shotton Colliery’s 22-ft festive spruce - and war memorial to fallen soldiers from the First World War - on December 10.
The 26-year-old was caught on CCTV carrying out the “mindless” act - with police later finding the saw used to fell the tree behind his kitchen fridge freezer.
Paul Doney, prosecuting, said the tree is estimated to have cost thousands of pounds and that Shotton Parish Council pay £400 every year to hang the Christmas lights around it.
He described how almost 100 people from the community gathered for the lights switch on the night before residents woke to find their tree had been cut down.
A statement read out from council clerk Stuart Wardle described how the tree had erected following a community fundraiser and had “brought the village together” over the last decade.
Mr Wardle branded the support from the community and members of the public since the felling as “nothing but admirable”.
Amrit Jandoo, defending, said McNamara, of Bruce Glazier Terrace, had “shamefully brought himself into public ridicule” following the incident.
He said that McNamara had cut down the tree “as some sort of joke” or that he was “attention seeking” and described that it was "impulsive" with a “lack of judgement”.
Mr Jandoo said that it was the "consequences of following another” - describing how he was one of two people involved in this incident.
“He is the one in court and he will take the responsibility for it”, Mr Jandoo said. “Someone else was carrying the saw, that is quite clear from the footage.”
Mr Jandoo said it was “shocking to behave in this way” but that the defendant had shown the “appropriate level of remorse” and apologised to the public and community of Shotton.
He also said that McNamara had even been attacked as a result of the incident.
The court heard that this was McNamara’s first conviction as an adult, having been involved in a “minor matter” involving criminal damage when he was a youth.
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Mr Jandoo said he had a low risk of reoffending.
Chairman of the bench William Unsworth said it was “not a very nice thing to do”, especially given that it is known as a memorial to fallen soldiers.
He sentenced McNamara to 10 weeks in custody, suspended for 18 months, with 200 hours of unpaid work and £520 compensation.
