UK trial told Sycamore Gap tree felling was a 'deliberate and mindless' act

LONDON (AP) — A prosecutor said Tuesday that two men embarked on a “moronic mission” to cut down the famous Sycamore Gap tree in northern England in an “act of deliberate and mindless criminal damage.”

The tree, revered for its symmetrical perch between two hills along ancient Hadrian’s Wall, was cut down in the early hours of Sept. 28, 2023, damaging the stone wall as it crashed to the ground. Although the sound was heard by few, the discovery of the fallen tree reverberated across the U.K and caused a national uproar.

“Though the tree had grown for over 100 years, the act of irreparably damaging it was the work of a matter of minutes,” prosecutor Richard Wright told jurors in opening statements at Newcastle Crown Court.

Wright outlined the evidence against Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, who have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of criminal damage. Prosecutors said the value of the tree exceeded 620,000 pounds ($831,000) and damage to the wall was assessed at 1,100 pounds.

Wright said one of the men used a chainsaw to expertly fell the tree in Northumberland National Park, while the other filmed the act using a phone.

As they returned to their homes afterwards in Graham's Range Rover, Carruthers received a video of his young child from his partner and replied, “I've got a better video than that,” Wright said.

“At the time of that text conversation, the only people in the world who knew the tree had been felled were the men who had had cut it down,” Wright said. “And the only people in the world who had access to the video were the men who had filmed themselves in the act of cutting down the tree: the defendants Graham and Carruthers.”

The tree was far from Britain’s biggest or oldest. But the way its graceful canopy filled the saddle in the hills along a stretch of the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire had attracted generations of followers. The wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The tree became famous after being featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves,” and was a big draw for tourists, landscape photographers and people taking selfies.

A criminal prosecution for cutting down a tree is rare and a prison sentence could be unprecedented if there's a conviction, said Sarah Dodd, an attorney who specializes in tree law. The maximum penalty for criminal damage is 10 years in jail.

“I don’t think anybody has got a custodial sentence for the illegal felling of a tree yet in the U.K.,” said Dodd. “That’s on the table because of the gravity of the situation. And when I say gravity, I think value and also the shock of the nation.”

Before the tree was cut down, about 80% of the inquiries at the main visitors' center of the Northumberland National Park were from people planning to walk to the tree, the park’s chief executive, Tony Gates, said.

"The tree is part of our Northumbrian identity. It’s something that everybody grows up knowing about,” said Catherine Cape, who owns a guest cabin nearby. “For the people in the villages around the tree, who live near the tree, it was a source of great pride.”

The felled sycamore was removed with a crane and taken to a National Trust property for storage. A section of the trunk went on display at the park visitor center last year and seeds from the tree that were used to grow saplings are being donated for planting around the U.K.

The tree is now fenced off, but there are signs of a possible recovery. Dozens of shoots have sprouted from the stump.

FILE - A general view of the stars above Sycamore Gap, prior to the Perseid Meteor Shower above Hadrian's Wall near Bardon Mill, England, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015.(AP Photo/Scott Heppell, File)

FILE - The felled Sycamore Gap tree is removed at Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, Oct. 11, 2023. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

FILE - A general view of the stars above Sycamore Gap prior to the Perseid Meteor Shower above Hadrian's Wall near Bardon Mill, England, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Scott Heppell, File)

FILE - The felled Sycamore Gap tree is seen on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, Sept. 29, 2023. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

FILE - Forensic investigators from Northumbria Police examining the felled Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, Sept. 29, 2023. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

Adam Carruthers, right, arrives at Newcastle Crown Court where he is accused of criminal damage after the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree - valued at £622,000 and £1,114 damage to Hadrian's Wall, in Newcastle, England, Monday April 28, 2025. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)

FILE - The felled Sycamore Gap tree is seen on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, Sept. 29, 2023. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

FILE - Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, shining over the Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England, July 3, 2016. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — President Donald Trump opened his four-day Mideast trip on Tuesday by paying a visit to Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for talks on U.S. efforts to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, end the war in Gaza, hold down oil prices and more.

Bin Salman warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One and kicked off his Middle East tour. The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport for a coffee ceremony.

The crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner and Trump is slated to take part later Tuesday in a U.S.-Saudi investment conference.

The U.S. president on Wednesday will join a gathering of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before leaving Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. Trump sees cheap energy as a key component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. The president has also made the case that lower oil prices will hasten an end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

But Saudi Arabia's economy remains heavily dependent on oil, and the kingdom needs a fiscal break-even oil price of $96 to $98 a barrel to balance its budget. It's questionable how long OPEC+, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member, is willing to keep production elevated. The price of a barrel of Brent crude closed Monday at $64.77.

“One of the challenges for the Gulf states of lower oil prices is it doesn’t necessarily imperil economic diversification programs, but it certainly makes them harder,” said Jon Alterman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Trump picked the kingdom for his first stop because it has pledged to make big investments in the U.S., but Trump ended up traveling to Italy last month for Pope Francis’ funeral. Riyadh was the first overseas stop of his first term.

The three countries on the president's itinerary — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — are all places where the Trump Organization, run by Trump's two elder sons, is developing major real estate projects. They include a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.

Trump is trying to demonstrate that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who say his global tariff war and approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine are isolating the United States from allies.

He’s expected to announce deals with the three wealthy countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and perhaps new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets.

But Trump arrives in the Mideast at a moment when his top regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are far from neatly aligned with his approach.

Ahead of the trip, Trump announced that the U.S. was halting a nearly two-month U.S. airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.

The administration didn’t notify Israel — which the Houthis continue to target — of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration’s negotiations with common adversaries.

In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t notified by the administration until after talks began with Hamas about the war in Gaza. And Netanyahu found out about the ongoing U.S. nuclear talks with Iran only when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.

“Israel will defend itself by itself,” Netanyahu said last week following Trump’s Houthi truce announcement. “If others join us — our American friends — all the better."

William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Trump’s decision to skip Israel on his first Middle East visit is remarkable.

“The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf ... are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment,” Wechsler said.

Trump, meanwhile, hopes to restart his first-term effort to normalize relations between the Middle East’s major powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Abraham Accords effort led to Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.

But Riyadh has made clear that in exchange for normalization it wants U.S. security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom’s nuclear program and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood. There seems to be scant hope for making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and the Israelis threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza.

Bin Salman last week notably hosted Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah on the sheikh’s first foreign visit since assuming office in April.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the crown prince appeared to be subtly signaling to Trump that the kingdom needs to see progress on Palestinian statehood for the Saudis to begin seriously moving on a normalization deal with the Israelis.

“Knowing how the Saudis telegraph their intentions, that’s a preemptive, ‘Don’t even think of asking us to show any goodwill toward normalization,’” Abdul-Hussain said.

Trump says he will decide during the trip how the U.S. government will refer to the body of water now commonly known as the Persian Gulf. He told reporters that he expects his hosts will ask him about the U.S. officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia.

Abbas Aragachi, the Iranian foreign minister, has warned that changing how the U.S. refers to the waterway would compel the “wrath of all Iranians from all walks of life and political persuasion in Iran, the U.S. and across the world.”

President Donald Trump, left, speaks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during family photo session at G-20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Pool Photo via AP, File)