One of the Sycamore Gap suspects who allegedly had footage of the moment the iconic tree was chopped down on his iPhone told police he was being ‘fixed up’, a court has heard.
Self-employed groundworker Daniel Graham, 39, told officers after his arrest he was embroiled in an ongoing row over a stolen digger with ‘that f***ing p***y down road’.
He denied chopping down the nation’s beloved 100-year-old sycamore saying he wasn’t trained to fell large trees.
But he claimed to know who had put his name forward as a suspect and vowed: ‘I’m going to get my own back.’
Newcastle Crown Court heard today police found footage on Graham’s phone showing a chunk of wood allegedly taken from the sycamore as a trophy and a chainsaw in the back of his Range Rover.
Both items have never been found by cops.
Graham said during a police interview his vehicle was ‘there to use’ whenever people needed it, and he would also lend out his mobile phone that was fitted with a passcode and facial recognition.
He is standing trial alongside mechanic Adam Carruthers, 32, who are both accused of travelling under the cover of darkness during Storm Agnes to chop down the Sycamore Gap.
Prosecutors told Newcastle Crown Court photos were found on Daniel Graham’s phone after his arrest showing a piece of the Sycamore Gap tree and a chainsaw in the back of his Range Rover
Groundworker Daniel Graham (left), 39, and mechanic Adam Carruthers (right), 32, each deny two counts of criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian’s Wall
They both deny two counts of criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian’s Wall when the sycamore crashed down onto the Roman stones on September 28, 2023.
The prosecution allege that Graham and Carruthers had ‘experience of cutting down large trees together’.
A video recovered from Graham’s phone filmed a month before Sycamore Gap was felled was said to show the pair cutting down another large tree.
Jurors heard today that during an interview with Northumbria Police, Graham said accusations in Facebook messages that he and his ‘pal’ were to blame for the felling was ‘all false f***ing sh**e’ and someone ‘stirring the pot’.
While in his first police interview on October 31 2023, Carruthers denied ever felling a tree.
The mechanic said: ‘I wouldn’t jump at the chance. I wouldn’t fancy it. I will stick to spanners.’
Graham said he thought he was being ‘fixed up’ and mentioned a ‘fake profile’ and a ‘p***y down the road’ when asked with whom he was in dispute.
Graham told police Carruthers had been assaulted by ‘a p***y’ who had accused him of stealing the piece of machinery.
‘He smashed his (Carruthers’) face up and ran a transit van into his car. I got involved and threatened the p***y,’ he said.
He said soon after the incident a Facebook post appeared which suggested he and Carruthers had been involved in the destruction at Sycamore Gap.
Asked if the dispute was ongoing, he replied: ‘Obviously it’s not finished because I’m f****** in here.’
In his first interview with police, Graham said he allowed other people to use his Range Rover.
His business had 11 vehicles, including wagons, tippers and dumpers, and others could drive them.
He said: ‘I couldn’t give a sh**e who uses the Range Rover, it’s there to use, that’s all it’s there for.’
Grabs from an enhanced version of mobile phone footage showing the Sycamore Gap being felled in September 2023, which has been shown at Newcastle Crown Court
Police officers look at the Sycamore Gap tree next to Hadrian’s Wall on September 28, 2023
Graham later added: ‘Adam takes it whenever he needs it like. A good pal, Adam.’
He told police: ‘It is nowt to do with me and I don’t know who has done it. I do know who has made this allegation, I know who has done this to me.’
The Range Rover was plotted on ANPR cameras travelling to and from Northumberland from Carlisle on the night of September 27, 2023, and the early hours of the following day.
Graham told officers: ‘I leave the keys in the car, I call it the black pig, it’s a piece of s**t.
‘Anyone can use it – my step-daughter’s boyfriend, my bird’s cousin. There could be a stranger from Carlisle passing my yard and they could take owt they wanted to.’
He told police that he assumed the people taking his Range Rover were insured to use it but didn’t ask.
He and Carruthers met and became close friends when Carruthers carried out extensive renovation work on a Jeep owned by Graham’s father, who had taken his own life.
The jury has been told the defendants now appeared to blame each other and their once-close friendship has ‘unravelled’.
Jurors were shown bodyworn camera footage from PC Peter Borini, who attended the scene
Asked by police if Carruthers had ever worked for him, Graham said: ‘He does tree work with us. All Adam does is tree work.’
Asked whether Carruthers was an experienced tree surgeon, Graham replied: ‘I wouldn’t say tree surgeon. He’s keen. You can put him up a tree with ropes and not worry he’s going to come down.’
Graham told police he went to Sycamore Gap after it was cut down ‘to see what had been done’, the court heard.
He answered ‘no’ when asked if he was responsible for felling the tree, and on what he knew about it, he said: ‘Just what I seen on the internet and obviously the news. I know about as much as everybody else does, it’s all over national news.’
When asked in a police interview about his movements on the night of the damage, Graham said: ‘It’s a month ago, I haven’t a f***** clue to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know.
‘I don’t really do a lot to be fair. I’m either at work, the yard or the bird’s round.
‘If I cut the tree down I would be able to turn round and say that’s where I was that day. I didn’t cut that tree down, so I didn’t do anything exciting.’
Graham had sometimes cut down trees as part of his business but said he hadn’t been trained for ‘a large fell’ when asked by cops how he would have chopped down the Sycamore Gap.
Asked if any of these chainsaws could be linked to cutting down the sycamore, Graham told police: ‘They wouldn’t be big enough.’
The Sycamore Gap tree is pictured here the night before it was chopped down on September 28, 2023
He said he would need to check a tree out prior to cutting it down as part of his work.
Asked how he would fell a tree from the bottom, Graham said he would cut a wedge from one side, cut in from the other side and would be aware of which way it was going to fall.
‘Whoever wants the vehicle, takes the vehicle, it’s how it works,’ he said.
Graham told police there was no booking-out procedure and he expected whoever was borrowing a vehicle would ensure they were insured.
Asked if any of the vehicles would be in the area of Sycamore Gap at the time the tree was felled, he replied: ‘Not by myself, no.’
Graham told police other people had used his Range Rover in the past, including Carruthers, but that he did not know if anyone had been using it on September 27-28.
In a second police interview four days later, Graham told detectives ‘there’s kids involved in all this s**t’.
But he declined to elaborate further, adding: ‘I’m not going to f*** someone’s life, I’m not going to f*** some kids’ life (lives), so I will go no comment.’
After initially responding to questions, Graham then answered ‘no comment’ when asked ‘why a video of the Sycamore Gap tree being felled is on your phone’.
Earlier, he told the interviewing officer who showed him the dark and grainy two minute, 41 second clip that none of his saws seized by police would sound like the chainsaw used in the video.
He then said: ‘Can you not do something about the light in this video to make it better because I’m pretty sure you will see the person by the tree.’
‘Is this you felling the Sycamore Gap tree?’ he was asked.
‘No comment,’ Graham, a groundworker, from near Carlisle, Cumbria, said.
A court artist’s sketch of Daniel Graham (left) and Adam Carruthers (right) at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on February 15, 2024
When told the video’s metadata showed the footage was created near the site of the Sycamore Gap, which stood in a dip by Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, Graham replied: ‘It might be my phone but it doesn’t mean I was stood behind it.’
Graham was asked about a message he sent to Carruthers on the morning before the tree was felled in which he said ‘big storm tonight we might get onto storm damage get saws warmed up’.
Graham told police that comment was about work which he anticipated would come in later.
Referring to felling the famous tree, he said: ‘I don’t have the time to do a job like that for free.’
He told the police that storms were ‘great’ for business, clearing wind-blown damage.
‘I do it for a wage, I don’t do stuff for free,’ he said.
In transcripts from two police interviews he gave in October and November 2023 – read by Detective Inspector Calum Meikle, the senior investigating officer in the case – Graham denied any involvement and said the allegations had ‘f***** up his life.’
But he declined to name who he believed was responsible for felling the tree.
‘I don’t give a f**k how it looks,’ he said. ‘If you want to charge me then charge me. I know what I have done and what I haven’t. I have no reason on this planet to fell that tree.
‘I will tell you what I will do with this. I will sort this problem myself.’
Asked why he wouldn’t provide a name, he added: ‘I ain’t going to. I have never been a grass. I’m not going to start grassing any Tom, Dick and Harry, whoever they are. If I get the blame then I get the blame.’
In an earlier interview, Graham said being linked with the crime had ruined his business. He said Facebook messages had begun appearing accusing him and Carruthers of felling the tree.
‘It has f****d my life, my livelihood,’ he said. ‘No doubt you [police] are putting my name in the press. It’s f****d my life up. I’m not putting up with this. I’m not being accused of what I haven’t done and have them ruin my business and ruin my [work] yard and torture me and put stuff on the internet. Not a chance.’
The Sycamore Gap tree was well-known and featured in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Jurors were told that forensic video analyst Emiliano Polito was instructed to compare photos and videos on Graham’s phone showing a piece of wood and a large chainsaw in the boot of a vehicle – taken at 2am on September 28 2023 – with images taken by a scenes of crime officer of Graham’s Range Rover at his property.
Ms Brown said Mr Polito conducted a vehicle comparison and found that ‘there is no doubt that vehicle X (the vehicle in the images and videos) and the recovered vehicle (Graham’s Range Rover) are the same vehicle’.
Junior prosecution counsel Rebecca Brown told jurors earlier today that Graham was first arrested at his home at Millbeck Stables, Carlisle, on October 31 2023.
His home was searched and two chainsaws were seized from a work shed, as well as a mobile phone inside a jacket pocket hanging in the caravan.
The court heard Carruthers was first arrested on suspicion of criminal damage on October 31, 2023, at the caravan where he was living at The Old Fuel Depot at Kirkbride Airfield, Wigton, Cumbria.
Ms Brown said the two men were arrested for a second time on November 3 2023, following further evidence.
The Old Fuel Depot site was searched by Northumbria Police on the same day and a chainsaw was found in a shipping container.
None of the chainsaws found in the searches are said to be the one used in felling the Sycamore Gap tree, jurors have heard.
Ms Brown said Mr Carruthers’ father’s house on Church Street, Wigton, Cumbria was also searched by police on November 3.
She told jurors: ‘The reason for the search was to look for outstanding property, namely a chainsaw and a wedge from the tree.’
Ms Brown said the house was ‘extremely cluttered with access to most rooms difficult because of this’ and there was no sign of any chainsaws or a wedge from a tree.
She told the court the house was also searched for chainsaw parts, chainsaw packaging; felling equipment, mobile phones, receipts of any relevant purchases, banking details, silver spray paint, clothing stained in silver paint and boots. None of these were found.
Yesterday, video of the alleged moment the Sycamore Gap tree was felled was played to jurors.
The two-minute and 41-second video was taken from Graham’s iPhone.
Police analyst Amy Sutherland said the video was in the download section of Graham’s phone, which was taken from his jacket pocket.
She said it was ‘in darkness’ but that ‘sounds of a chainsaw’ could be heard.
Ms Sutherland told the court she had been able to get the co-ordinates of where it was filmed from the metadata, and that they were for Sycamore Gap.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told jurors earlier in the trial that the video had been enhanced by a Northumbria Police expert but was still ‘extremely dark’.
However, what appears to be the outline of a tree can be seen, initially upright, before falling to the ground by the end of the clip.
What prosecutors say is the ‘unmistakable sound of a chainsaw’ can be heard.
The video clip was played to the court twice – once showing the dark, raw footage, and a second time after it had been enhanced by a police specialist.
The trial continues.
