How Sycamore Gap fellers went from friends to foes

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were best mates when they illegally felled the much-loved Sycamore Gap tree together. How did they end up turning on each other?

It is hard to imagine they were once friends.

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers used to phone each other every day and met up several times a week but, as they stood in the dock at Newcastle Crown Court, waiting for the verdicts to be returned, they looked like complete strangers.

The prosecution called them "the odd couple" who did everything together.

They became friends about four years ago.

Carruthers was a mechanic and did Graham "a good turn" by fixing his dad's Land Rover, making a special job of it so it could be used for Graham's father's funeral.

Graham was a ground worker and he enlisted the man he called his "best pal" to help him on jobs, with tasks including the felling of trees for which they split the cash 50/50.

Then one night, during Storm Agnes in 2023, the friends went to Sycamore Gap.

Under the cover of darkness, they trekked across marshland in winds of up to 60mph and used their experience to mark the trunk, cut a wedge out of it so they knew which direction it would fall and then cut it down with a chainsaw.

They filmed it and watched the sycamore crashing to the ground.

What they didn't realise is that the phone and vehicle they used would be tracked and the conversations they had would be discovered.

As the police questioning began, their stories unravelled and so did their friendship.

Graham's phone was used to film the felling.

Road and CCTV cameras captured his Range Rover going to and from Steel Rigg, the nearest public car park to the tree.

He told the court his car and phone were used by other people, including Adam Carruthers "who didn't need to ask".

Prosecutor Richard Wright KC was incredulous at his claims, telling jurors: "According to Graham he didn't go out all night and Carruthers took his car and phone while he slept in blissful ignorance, and his large dog let out not so much as a growl."

It wasn't the only story that was mocked in court.

Carruthers' phone had been traced to Northumberland the day the tree was felled.

It was suggested to him he was scoping the area out.

He told the court he was taking his partner out on a three-hour round trip for a meal at the Metrocentre in Gateshead after she'd recently given birth, but their baby started crying so they turned the car around at a spot that just happened to be near the tree.

Christopher Knox, Graham's barrister, said: "You're telling the jury in spite of the fact she wasn't well enough to lift a baby, you were going 65 miles with [your partner] and a new-born":[]}