One of the two men accused of felling the Sycamore Gap tree has denied being responsible and said he was asked to take the blame because he had mental health issues.
Daniel Graham said his co-defendant, Adam Carruthers, was responsible for felling the tree next to Hadrian’s Wall.
He said Carruthers called it “the most famous tree in the world” and had a sentimental attachment to a length of string which he once used to measure its circumference.
Graham, 39, and Carruthers, 32, were once good friends and are jointly charged with criminally felling the tree and damaging the Roman wall on which it stood.
On day four of their trial at Newcastle crown court, Graham, who ran a groundwork business, gave evidence and accepted that his Range Rover car was used to drive to and from the tree and that his Apple iPhone was used to film its felling.
But appearing in the witness box for the first time, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, Graham said he played no part and would have been in bed asleep in his caravan having taken sleeping pills.
The tree was deliberately cut down in the early hours of 28 September 2023 during the strong winds of Storm Agnes. Prosecutors claim Graham and Carruthers were together on a “moronic mission” to topple it and later revelled in the resulting headlines.
Graham said that on the morning it happened Carruthers rang him and said he had cut down the tree. Graham told the jury: “I told him that he was talking shite, I didn’t believe it.”
On a later date, he said Carruthers and another man, Lindsay Dalgleish, arrived at Graham’s property with pizza. They asked Graham to take the blame for felling the tree “because I have mental health issues. Apparently they would be more lenient with me.” Graham said “no”, he told the jury.
Asked what their reaction was, Graham said they goaded him and told him: “Nowt will happen to you, you will get away with it.”
Graham has named Dalgleish as a suspect in the case. DI Calum Meikle of Northumbria police told the court they had looked into claims about Dalgleish but were “satisfied that he wasn’t involved”.
Graham’s barrister, Christopher Knox, asked his client if Carruthers had ever talked about felling the Sycamore Gap tree. “He’d mentioned it but he mentioned a lot of things,” said Graham.
Graham said he recalled Carruthers talking about the tree in 2021 when Graham went to use some string and Carruthers said not to because it had sentimental value.
Carruthers laid the string in a circle and said it was the circumference of the Sycamore Gap tree. “He told me it was the most famous tree in the world,” said Graham. That was the first time Graham knew about the tree, he said.
Knox said it was clear two people had been involved on the night – one person cutting down the tree and one filming.
“Adam felled the tree, I don’t know 100% who the other person was,” Graham said.
Under cross-examination by the prosecuting barrister, Richard Wright KC, Graham was asked if he was lying and changing his story.
The court heard Graham owned two dogs, one big and vocal. Wright asked Graham why his dog did not go “berserk” when two people came into his yard and took his Range Rover. Graham said it was windy, the dog may not have heard and it would not have barked if it heard Carruthers’ voice.
Wright asked if it was a lie that Graham first knew about the tree in 2021 since he had reported a car being stolen from the Steel Rigg car park – used by visitors to Sycamore Gap – in 2020.
Graham said: “Just because I know about the car park doesn’t mean I know about the tree.”
At one point Graham said to Wright: “You might be a little bit more educated than me and you’re trying to make a fool of me.”
The trial has heard that police have never recovered the chainsaw used to cut down the tree, or a wedge of trunk that was removed in order to cut it down and was photographed in the boot of Graham’s Range Rover.
On Friday the jury was played a phone call Graham made to police a year after the crime in which he offered intelligence anonymously.
Graham can be heard telling police that if they were to visit Carruthers’ home, a caravan on Kirkbride airfield, they would find the chainsaws and wedge. He also said Carruthers had access to firearms – a handgun and an old shotgun.
Graham told the court he believed the “police did not do a very good job” investigating the crime.
Graham, of Carlisle, and Carruthers, of Wigton, are jointly charged with causing criminal damage worth £622,191 to the tree. They are also charged with causing £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco world heritage site. The wall and the tree belong to the National Trust.
The pair deny all the charges against them. The trial continues.