Sycamore Gap tree felling suspect claims he was ‘fixed up’ after a dispute by someone ‘stirring the pot’

A man accused of chopping down the iconic Sycamore Gap tree told police he had been “fixed up” as officers searching his home discovered a phone with a video of a wedge of wood in his car boot, a jury has heard.

Groundworker Daniel Graham, 39, told officers he was being framed for the crime as part of a dispute with someone “stirring the pot”, Newcastle Crown Court heard on Thursday.

Speaking in his first police interview, Graham denied cutting down the sycamore, claiming he was not trained to fell anything as large as the famous tree that stood beside Hadrian’s Wall.

Prosecutors told the jury photographs and two short videos found on Graham's phone on the day of his arrest showed a piece of wood next to a chainsaw in the boot of his Range Rover.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutor Richard Wright KC suggested that Graham and his co-accused Adam Carruthers, 32, took a wedge of the Sycamore Gap tree “perhaps as some sort of trophy”.

Graham, of Carlisle, and mechanic Carruthers, of Wigton, Cumbria, each deny two counts of causing criminal damage to both the tree and Hadrian’s Wall, which the falling sycamore hit as it came down on the night of 27 September 2023.

The prosecution say the pair travelled from Carlisle to the Northumberland landmark, where one used a chainsaw to fell the tree while the other filmed it on Graham’s mobile phone.

Jurors on Thursday were told that forensic video analyst Emiliano Polito had “no doubt” the vehicle in the video showing a piece of wood and chainsaw in the boot - taken in the hours after the Sycamore Gap was felled - was Graham’s Range Rover.

The video was on Graham’s phone, the prosecution said, which was found inside a jacket pocket hanging in a caravan during a search of the suspect’s home following his arrest on 31 October, 2023.

Two chainsaws were also seized from a work shed.

During police interview on the day of his arrest, Graham told officers he thought he was being “fixed up” and mentioned a “fake profile” and a “pikey down the road” when asked with whom he was in dispute.

He told police there had been an altercation when his friend Carruthers was assaulted, and Facebook messages later appeared, accusing the pair of felling the Sycamore Gap tree.

“Someone stirring the pot,” Graham told officers. When asked if the dispute had finished, he replied: “Obviously it’s not finished because I’m f****** in here.”

The jury also heard how Graham had 11 vehicles connected to his business. He told police in interview that he did not know if anyone had been using his Range Rover on the night the Sycamore Gap tree came down.

He also told police that he would lend his mobile phone to other people.

In a second interview, when asked if he filmed the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree on his mobile, and when questioned on the video and photograph showing a chunk of tree and chainsaw in the boot of a vehicle, he answered “no comment”.

The jury heard that Carruthers was also first questioned by police on 31 October 2023.

He told police he did not remember what he had been doing on the night the Sycamore Gap tree had been felled, but he had probably been helping his partner look after their newborn baby.

Asked if he had felled a tree before, Carruthers replied: “If someone said ‘there’s a tree and there’s a saw, cut that down,’ I’d have a go but I’ve never done it.” He added: “I wouldn’t be keen doing it, I wouldn’t jump at the chance if I’m honest, like. I wouldn’t fancy that – I’ll stick with spanners.”

Jurors heard that despite extensive searches by police, the chainsaw two men allegedly used to cut down the tree and a wedge of the trunk prosecutors say they took were never found.

The trial continues.