01 - The Sycamore Gap Trial - A Turning Point for Tree Law

Episode 1: The Sycamore Gap Trial - A Turning Point for Tree Law

In this solo debut, Sarah Dodd, founder of Tree Law, unpacks the Sycamore Gap trial: the events, the courtroom drama, and what it all means for the future of tree protection in the UK. 

With unique behind-the-scenes detail and legal context, Sarah explores how this high-profile case turned the felling of a single tree into international news. 

She also shares her take on tree valuation, possible sentencing outcomes, and what comes next. 

Essential listening for anyone who cares about trees, justice, or both.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can leave me a voice message at www.speakpipe.com/treelaw – your questions or reflections might even feature in a future episode.

🎧 Huge thanks to Mike at Making Digital Real for producing and editing this episode to such a high standard.

Transcript

Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to the very first episode of Trees in a Pod, the tree lore podcast dealing with all things trees and tree lore. So I'm excited to kick off the podcast with a solo episode, so me chatting about a couple of things and the first thing which really springs to mind which I'm delighted to speak about as the very first episode of Trees in a Pod is the Sycamore Gap trial. You may well have been following the Sycamore Gap trial, the verdict came in last week so I thought it was a good chance to reflect on what has happened, what the incident actually was, what the criminal charges were, how the trial went down, what the verdict was and what is going to happen now.

So let's kick off with what on earth happened. So looking back we have the night of the 28th of September 2023. Now a storm was coming and it was one of those named storms which actually it seems could be one of the reasons why the incident was timed to happen on that night because actually it would be a quiet night for people to be out and about so a night where they wouldn't be spotted.

So on the night of the 28th of September 23 the Sycamore Gap tree was cut down so the nation woke up on the 29th of September with the Sycamore tree lying against Hadrian's Wall felled. It immediately became a crime scene, it was cordoned off, the land is owned by the National Trust, the police were called, the Northumbria police and investigations started. So forensic investigations, those happened much like any other criminal case so as if this were a murder or something else like that. 

So there was ANPR evidence gathered, there was forensic evidence gathered in the vehicles that were potentially used, there was cell site analysis done to locate mobile phones belonging to the defendants and I think the car and the phones were both seized and yeah the phones were definitely seized and the data was drawn down from there. What the outcome of the police investigation was was that charges got laid against two individuals so that was firstly Mr Daniel Graham and then second Adam Carruthers. They were both charged with the criminal damage not only damage to the Sycamore tree itself but damage to Hadrian's Wall when the tree fell and caused damage to the wall as it hit it on the way down.

The trial was meant to go ahead December, I think December last year but when the defendants I think was taken to hospital so was unable to attend so the trial got delayed and it went ahead in April. It was listed for a 10-day hearing, I think it ended up being a little bit less than 10 days in the end but it started on the 28th of April in the Newcastle Crown Court. I went up for day one of the trial so I got to see the first day with the jury being sworn in so to be honest not an awful lot happened then. 

The jury was being sworn in obviously trial by trial by jury but we all know what that means but there was a couple of points that were very noticeable. First was the interest of the press. There were so many press there. 

I was staying in a hotel close by the night before and as I was walking to the courtroom in the morning you could see press all lined up in front of the Crown Court representing all the channels so you know BBC, ITV, Sky, newspapers and also international publications so it was clear that this was going to have interest not just in the UK but across the world internationally. As well when we went in I wasn't sure I was going to get a space in the courtroom so there's a relatively modest size media box but there probably isn't it's just the number of people there from the media was such that the media box was totally full and a couple of people from the media spread out into the public gallery because obviously the primary objective is to make sure the media can attend so they can report. I managed to get a seat in the public gallery so that was good news for me. 

The first thing then that happens which I noticed was the two defendants clearly were no longer friends, clearly no longer sort of in cahoots with one another. There was an outburst at the beginning where one of the defendants I think it was Daniel Graham thought that somebody in the public gallery who was related or friends with Adam Carruthers was giving him intimidating hand gestures and he shouted out with a couple of expletives so it got a little bit tense at that point but calmed down shortly thereafter. Then the jury was sworn in and ready for evidence to start then the following day.

I wasn't in the courtroom the following day but I was following very closely with what was happening on the BBC because the BBC was sort of giving almost like a minute by minute account of the evidence as it was coming out and I was really interested to see what the evidence was. The evidence showed that Daniel Graham's vehicle travelled from his house to the Sycamore Gap area and back which was around the corner you know this is like a three-hour round trip. His telephone, his mobile phone travelled from his home to the Sycamore Gap and back again.

He said that both his phone and his car were left sort of unlocked and for somebody somebody could have taken them so said it wasn't him that was actually actually driving them, driving the car or using the phone. Then fast forward a little bit later on in the evidence and there was the shock, I can only imagine what the atmosphere was in the court when the video of the Sycamore Gap tree being felled was played. Now this was a low quality video, this was a video taken on a mobile phone in the middle of the night in stormy weather and whilst the video itself was sort of grainy black and white really unclear you couldn't you could tell it was a Sycamore Gap due to the sort of profile of the tree and where it was you couldn't tell who was doing the felling but the thing that stood out the most was the sound the sound of the chainsaw it was so loud so clear the sound of that fell in the tree was just must have been absolutely brutal when that was ringing out across the courtroom.

So the defendants gave, well the prosecution sorry, set out the evidence they had against the defendants. The defendants were questioned in the witness box, they really didn't have a defense I mean ultimately they were found guilty so they have no defense. Adam Caruthers was saying that he doesn't know what all the fuss was about it was just a tree and why was everybody treating it like a murder and Daniel Graham said he didn't do it it wasn't his car it wasn't his phone he thinks it was Adam Caruthers who did it so he was sort of blaming the other one and he said he was the one that made an anonymous tip-off to the police because although he initially said wouldn't ever grass anybody up you know code in terms of code you would never grass a mate up it was putting his business in jeopardy he had a tree work business and it was putting it in jeopardy. 

So they're really blaming one another and they're also sort of relying on their own incompetency I think both of them were saying oh you know we work with trees but neither of us have really ever felled a tree before we don't don't own chainsaws that can actually do this work Daniel Caruthers actually sorry Daniel Graham actually said that if you turn the volume up and listen to the chainsaw you could tell from the sound of the chainsaw that that wasn't a chainsaw that belonged to him which is quite seems like quite a a bizarre argument and again referred to not owning chainsaws like that but then some evidence came to light showing one of them uh Adam Caruthers at Daniel Graham's workshop with the chainsaws that they claim not to own in the background of the photo and then also them saying they've never chopped a tree down before and another evidence showing that they had chopped significantly sized trees in the past so bizarre um the jury were then sent out to deliberate and there was talk about how quick the jury going to come back with their decision some were saying I'm talking about it like it was a slam dunk saying the decision would come back within minutes and it would be a you know a guilty finding that didn't happen though the decision didn't come back within minutes and there was a day or so where we were left wondering actually what was the outcome of this trial going to be at that point I was away at a conference and speaking to other people in the tree world and a couple of them said that they were concerned that they were going to be found not guilty because the burden of proof in a criminal case you know beyond all reasonable doubt meant that would the jury be persuaded that if there is no photographic evidence proving showing documenting one or both of them at the location that they then wouldn't be wouldn't be found guilty but thank goodness that wasn't what happened um so around probably half past 10 I would imagine the decision actually happened on last Thursday night because by the time the court started on Friday morning so we are talking on the morning of the 9th of May the decision was out by about half past 10 and was the jury must have gone straight in in the morning told the judge they found the decision and then the four four person must have stood up and set out the guilty finding against both defendants so Daniel Graham was already in custody he's remanded in custody Adam Crothers wasn't in custody but he is now in custody pending sentencing so looking ahead now to what might happen so obviously the trial and the verdict came in on the 9th of May first thing I think of is as with any defendants or any parties they've got the ability to raise an appeal this was a crown court decision so if an appeal is raised it will be raised to the court of appeal there is 28 days that they have to do that so if that is going to happen then we are looking at I think it's about it's early June about the 6th of June I think which will be the last day for them to lodge an appeal so question mark will an appeal be lodged I wouldn't be surprised either way but my thought at this point is probably not and the next thing that will happen after that is the sentencing hearing so the jury have obviously convicted them and found them guilty but it is for the judge to actually set out what their sentence will be now this is getting a lot of attention because for the first time there is the option here of the defendants having a fine so being fined for the criminal damage to the tree and them all but then there's also a possibility of a custodial sentence so the defendant's going to prison and there's reference to a possible custodial sentence of up to 10 years so this is a significant amount of time because it's such an interesting case it's such a one-off case and one that we really haven't seen the like of before you know individuals entering somebody else's property randomly felling a tree with no rhyme reason or purpose behind it other than potential attention I suppose it's really going to be interesting to see what the judge does in terms of how she goes about giving them a sentence what she decides is fair one thing that's super interesting here is because this is of public interest and due to the high profile nature of the case the media who've been there in attendance at the trial have made an application for the sentencing hearing to be televised and broadcast live now that's interesting because sentencing hearings have only been been broadcastable I suppose in the UK since 2022 only 34 have been broadcast live so far so this would be the 35th there is rumor that the judge is going to approve that and that looks to be even more confirmed today that the judge is going to agree for the sentencing hearing to be broadcast live so I'm not sure what channel it will be on yet it might be on one of the approved channels the BBC I think ITV are another approved channel and Sky if you don't get it live there is a live broadcast it will be as one of the archived sessions on Sky News's YouTube channel so it's available to watch on catch up so the two big questions then are will they get a custodial sentence if they do how long will it be I suppose it's more than two questions and then the second one is if there isn't a custodial sentence but a fine is granted what will the fine be and how will that be calculated now how the fine will be calculated brings into question the issue of tree valuation now valuing the loss of a tree isn't like valuing the loss of a car or the loss of the television or something that you can put a price on by going to the open market valuing a tree is far more difficult in the UK there are two or three tree valuation tools that are commonly used in the tree industry they are the cavat valuation heliwell and then also the potential i-tree valuation now that's the tree valuation options and I'm not talking about timber the value of the timber and I'm not talking about the cost of replacing a tree so this is the pure tree valuation tool the one that has been used in the signal gap case is the cavat valuation tool at the beginning of the case and in the media that was referenced to the cavat valuation of the tree being around 622 000 I'm told by a member of the media that I think the barristers expressed some frustration that that figure had been spoken about in the press as being an agreed figure or a figure which was what the cavat valuation came out at um so it seems in the last couple of days actually there's a bit of a question mark over that as an agreed figure there's some suggestion that it shouldn't be as high as 622 000 and there's figures of 450 000 floating around now this is where partly this is where my interest as a lawyer is really peaked because tree valuation and using suitable tools what the tool you know how far the tools can go is a really interesting topic if you want to have a debate with anybody in the tree industry then you could just start talking about a tree valuation tool because people have got lots of different opinions about how they're used what's the best one to use etc etc so I'm going to be keen to see if the judge does want to apply a fine and she does want to use a tree valuation tool to be able to calculate what that fine is actually what comments is she going to make about tree valuation tools at all cavat as a valuation tool the appropriateness of cavat in this situation of a tree in the ownership of the national trust not an urban tree and it was not a local authority owned tree and not a protected tree either so I'm really looking forward to seeing what those comments might be because although I'm doubtful or I'm fingers crossed I'm hopeful that there won't be many claims akin to this again unlikely to have individuals randomly entering onto somebody's land spelling their tree for no reason but I'm hopeful that those comments about tree valuation are going to have wider use it would be really interesting to see how that those comments might impact the use of a tree valuation tool in tree damage or illegal tree tree felling cases in the future so both civil and criminal cases so that's my hope if the judge decides to just make a custodial sentence and say nothing about cavat then so be it but that's what I will be looking for so what's going to be happening between now and then so the sentencing hearing is on the 15th of July so a little bit of time between now and then why such a gap in time I've been I've heard that from a couple of members of the press why doesn't it just go ahead straight away well I wonder whether they want to be well clear of the potential 28 days for appeal just in case an appeal is lodged possibly it could possibly be to allow the parties to prepare a sentencing bundle I don't know whether there's more evidence which might be needed in in sport to be put into the sentencing bundle evidence from an arborist or someone qualified to use the tree valuation systems potentially I don't know I'm speculating at this point and then also capacity let's not forget that court capacity and judge's capacity is really slim it's so it's so so tight so I think it could simply be a question of the fact that the judge wasn't available until the 15th of July so on the 15th of July the sentence in here will go ahead should be broadcast live I will hopefully be there live in person although I'm saying anything obviously on the public gallery but listening and taking a very keen note on what happens and I think in the aftermath of that reflecting really on what this means for tree law and the tree industry but to round off this first episode of trees in a pod I would say that the sycamore gap trial absolutely propelled trees and tree protection to front page news front page news and I'm not just talking about front page news in the UK I have spoken to the Washington Post USA Today and the World American News Channel so it's got it's really captured the attention across the world because I think the American press seem to be saying why you know why has this happened why do people in the UK love trees so much like what is it about the history of the UK that makes the UK such a tree loving nation why has it happened and how is this going to be punished so they're really like watching this space and the interest in it does not seem to be dying down so I think we'll probably learn more between now and the 15th of July and then when the 15th of July comes there could be changes that mean for me as a tree lawyer I go to the hearing on the 15th of July and I come back to the office on the 16th and I immediately need to start implementing some of those changes or some of those observations that the judge makes in the cases that I'm dealing with so that's my little whistle stop tour of the sycamore gap so far lots more to say on it but I hope you enjoyed the first episode of trees in a pod thank you for joining me