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2 men are charged with cutting down famous 150-year-old tree near Hadrian's Wall in England (apnews.com)

submitted 4 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

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Two men have been charged with cutting down the popular 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree next to Hadrian’s Wall last year in northern England, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Daniel Graham, 38, and Adam Carruthers, 31, were charged with causing criminal damage and damaging the wall built in A.D. 122 by Emperor Hadrian to guard the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire.

They were ordered to appear in Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on May 15.

The sycamore’s majestic canopy between two hills made it a popular subject for landscape photographers. It became a destination after being featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”

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[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 93 points 4 months ago

Tree was 150 years old.

Sentence them to the same amount of time.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 137 points 4 months ago

Not for prison, though. For community service rebuilding historic sites.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 92 points 4 months ago

And planting trees.

[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago

Good idea

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 months ago

Hear hear, who’d want to pay for all their meals as they generate nothing besides prison profits.

[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 10 points 4 months ago

Prisons should not be for profit institutes.

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 months ago

That'd be reasonable, I guess. Probably just on weekends, but for the rest of their working lives.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 43 points 4 months ago

Good. I'm glad to hear it. I can't imagine what excuse they're planning on giving, but it won't be a good one.

[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 57 points 4 months ago

I find this just so completely impossible to understand. At least with crimes like murder or burglary, I can understand where the motivation came from, but this? What could they possibly gain by doing this, other than the thrill of destroying something beautiful, or the knowledge that they're making other people sad? How is that at all fulfilling?

I honestly feel that people who get their kicks from this sort of thing just have no place in modern society.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 51 points 4 months ago

Some people just love being destructive. Like these assholes who were filmed a couple of weeks ago and who I don't think have been caught yet.

https://www.iflscience.com/national-park-service-seeks-help-finding-two-men-caught-vandalizing-rocks-at-lake-mead-73834

I don't understand it either, but there doesn't seem to be any more to it than 'we wanted to destroy it.'

[-] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 21 points 4 months ago

Tldr: people are dicks and absolutely will just break shit they know other people like just because they get a little thrill at causing other people to feel bad, or they really do just like breaking things and have no regard for others, history, or significance.

A couple years back there was a big search going on when someone decided to topple a cliffside tree and it fell onto the path below and crushed someone.

Looked it up just now because I never heard any follow up, and not only is it now reported as a "log" (idk if you can call a mostly dead tree a "log" but whatever) and three teenagers were charged.

At a state park near my house, there's an insane amount of huge sandstone boulders deposited by glacial melt, and half buried. Someone knocked an eroded piece away that was kind of like a table that people had a tradition of "you walk up the super steep sideof the mountain/hill, grab a pebble on your way up, and when you get to the top you try to toss it onto the pile that's accumulated over the years"

Now there's just a slowly building pile of palm sized rocks where the sandstone table fell as people started a new tradition.

I fully believe that if the world was introduced to a newly discovered alien species that only exists in one single hole on Mars, and teleportation on the same day, someone would have stuck an explosive in the puddle by the end of the day.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

Don't forget the long-lasting human tradition of making sure everyone knew you were there by carving your name into something beautiful. Literally goes back thousands of years.

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[-] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 11 points 4 months ago

Bet it's going to be: "We were making a Tic-Tok video...."

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

As far as I'm concerned, it can be "we noticed the tree was destroying the wall and we cut it down before it did any more damage." It was a unilateral decision on their part and done clandestinely. There's just no good excuse they can give.

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[-] Mango@lemmy.world 42 points 4 months ago

I'm not defending these guys, but holy shit. Y'all in here are fucking bloodthirsty. One of you is literally tossing out due process like all we need is an accusation.

[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 24 points 4 months ago

I just recently watched Star Trek TNG S04E21 The Drumhead. A reminder how important due process is and how easy it can derail.

[-] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 8 points 4 months ago

Damn if I don’t have to give bonus points for you wrapping it up in Star Wars to make like 85% of the fediverse pay attention and get it

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago

Star Wars

Hmmm... Intentional trolling or not... Can't decide...

[-] NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 6 points 4 months ago

lol. Accident but I’m leaving it

[-] dezmd@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

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[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 32 points 4 months ago

Is there any more info on how the hell they found them? I thought back then they had basically no idea who the perpetrators were.

[-] Sizzler@slrpnk.net 17 points 4 months ago

Someone snitching out here yo!

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Yeah. One of them talked too much.

[-] Bobmighty@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago

Stupid assholes doing stupid asshole shit. I'm not as bloodthirsty as most here, but I do hope they really fucking hate their punishment. I hope it bothers them far more than any fun they had being dumb assholes. That'll be enough for me.

[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 18 points 4 months ago

I thought they initially arrested a 16 year old kid for this? So he was innocent?

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Every 16 year old boy is guilty of something. You just haven't figure out what yet.

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[-] xePBMg9@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 4 months ago

I'm all for rehabilitation of criminals. But they also somehow have to repay what they took. Somehow they have to give 150 years back.

[-] Entropywins@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

Will 150 saplings that are all 1 year old work?

[-] theinspectorst@kbin.social 15 points 4 months ago

150 duck-sized sycamore trees or 1 sycamore-tree-sized duck?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I think community service planting trees is the best possible sentence for the people that did this.

[-] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

150 days planting saplings for 8 hours sounds better to me.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 4 months ago

I'm curious what their motive was, exactly.

[-] ChuggingPus@lemmynsfw.com 19 points 4 months ago

Probably pissed up pair of cunts doing it for a 'laugh'

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[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 4 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

LONDON (AP) — Two men have been charged with cutting down the popular 150-year-old Sycamore Gap tree next to Hadrian’s Wall last year in northern England, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Daniel Graham, 38, and Adam Carruthers, 31, were charged with causing criminal damage and damaging the wall built in A.D. 122 by Emperor Hadrian to guard the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire.

They were ordered to appear in Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on May 15.

The sycamore’s majestic canopy between two hills made it a popular subject for landscape photographers.

It became a destination after being featured in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.”

The nighttime felling last fall caused outrage as police tried to figure out what inspired such an act of vandalism.

The original article contains 126 words, the summary contains 126 words. Saved 0%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 18 points 4 months ago

Wow. Really saved me some time there!

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this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024

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