Famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall had been deliberately cut down

zooterkin said:
Well, that was my first thought, but it certainly reads as though they are, hence my question.
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There have been some trials of trials of allowing live reporting, don’t know if this is one of of them or it’s been decided to allow some.
 
GlennB said:
Why are these clowns pleading 'not guilty'?
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Lots of people want to know why they did it. As long as they're maintaining their innocence they don't need to come up with an excuse for what looks like a disgusting act of pure malice.
 
Darat said:
There have been some trials of trials of allowing live reporting, don’t know if this is one of of them or it’s been decided to allow some.
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Yes, and it may depend on the court.

I'm pretty sure reporter/author Nick Wallis was tweeting live from the courtroom when the Post Office inquiry was going on.
 
Live tweeting is allowed. There's an entire group of stenographers called "Tribunal Tweets" who make a speciality of it. One tribunal wouldn't let them tweet, and I read an interesting article about the law and why that decision was wrong, but I doubt if I could find it now.
 
GlennB said:
Why are these clowns pleading 'not guilty'?
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Looks like they've fallen out, and each is trying to blame the other.

Carruthers and Graham were once good friends, the jury was told, but not now. “That once close friendship has seemingly completely unravelled, perhaps as the public revulsion at their behaviour became clear to them,” Wright said. He said each man may now be trying to blame the other.
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zooterkin said:
Looks like they've fallen out, and each is trying to blame the other.
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AKA 'The Cut-throat Defence'

(Also courtesy of Rumpole of the Bailey.)
Rumpole wants to avoid a ‘Cut-throat’ Defence where both defendants accuse the other of being the shooter and both wind up Guilty, but ‘Portia’ is having none of it and encourages Cyril to accuse Den.
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Rumpole of the Bailey: s04 e06 – Rumpole’s Last Case

One more end of season. One more toy with audience about whether Rumpole’s going to come back. New ideas, please. And better ones. Better than this. I really, really, really hate episodes tha…
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It's weird. A few days ago there were stories of vandals in Los Angeles chainsawing trees on public property.

Are they trying to own the libs?
 
Daniel Graham, one of the defendants, is giving evidence - he denies being present at the felling of the tree and says "someone else" (he says he knows who, but didn't give a name) borrowed his car (which had his phone in it - this is why the phone was tracked going to and from the Sycamore Gap). He says the other defendant, Carruthers, told him the following morning that he'd felled the tree. Carruthers then asked Graham to take the blame saying that he would get away with it because of his mental health issue.
 
Matthew Best said:
Daniel Graham, one of the defendants, is giving evidence - he denies being present at the felling of the tree and says "someone else" (he says he knows who, but didn't give a name) borrowed his car (which had his phone in it - this is why the phone was tracked going to and from the Sycamore Gap). He says the other defendant, Carruthers, told him the following morning that he'd felled the tree. Carruthers then asked Graham to take the blame saying that he would get away with it because of his mental health issue.
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Is Mr Graham on this video footage that we've been led to believe establishes his guilt beyond reasonable doubt?
 
theprestige said:
Is Mr Graham on this video footage that we've been led to believe establishes his guilt beyond reasonable doubt?
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No, you can't tell who it is. The video is grainy, black and white, and shaky. It's here, in this informative article.

www.bbc.com

Sycamore Gap accused claims 'best pal' did it

Daniel Graham claims his co-accused felled the world famous tree and asked him to take the blame.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
GlennB said:
I'm only aware of one, the one shown on BBC. Do you know of another?
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I distinctly remember being told there was video that clearly identified the culprits, obviating a not guilty plea.

ETA: Here it is:

GlennB said:
They filmed themselves doing it. The metadata from the video also pinpoints that exact location.
etc etc
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Last edited:
Why won't he say who the "someone else" was? Why did he let this "someone else" borrow not only his car but his mobile phone?
I'm not buying this story. Is doesn't rise to the level of a "reasonable doubt" in my mind. I want to hear what the other one says now.
 
Graham appears to me to be a bit unreliable.

His story is that Carruthers borrowed his Range Rover while Graham was sleeping in his (Graham's) caravan, and the Range Rover had his phone in it, which he alleges Carruthers used to film the deed.

Graham then says Carruthers brought the car back all without Graham hearing anything, leaving a chunk of wood from the tree in the back.

Graham says he knew nothing about it until Carruthers called him in the morning to tell him about it.

I thought he said his phone was in the car? He'd have had to go out to the car to get it and seen the wood. Seems suspicious.

He says he can't remember what time he went out to get his phone. The phone call was at 9:20am.

www.bbc.com

Sycamore Gap accused Daniel Graham tells court 'I was asked to take the blame' - live updates

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, both from Cumbria, deny the charges.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

"Mr Wright was just asking him about the morning after, what time Mr Graham got up and when he got his phone and found the video of the alleged felling.

Mr Graham says he cannot recall such details so long after the event, telling the prosecutor: "You stand there and pull all the faces you want, it's not going to help me remember.""
 
Orphia Nay said:
Graham appears to me to be a bit unreliable.
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Yeah, nothing about his story sounds remotely plausible. He's trying to explain how clearly his vehicle was involved, and his mobile phone is the one that took the video, and a wedge of the tree was found in his vehicle along with a chainsaw, but yet he himself had nothing to do with it. And this doesn't really mean anything, but he said that his testimony was "110% true". How can anything be more than 100% true?
"Anyone is welcome to use my phone," he says.
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Anyway, I'm waiting to see what the other one has to say.
 
Puppycow said:
Why won't he say who the "someone else" was? Why did he let this "someone else" borrow not only his car but his mobile phone?
I'm not buying this story. Is doesn't rise to the level of a "reasonable doubt" in my mind. I want to hear what the other one says now.
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You've got it entirely backwards. The prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

It's not the defendant's job to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's narrative.
 
theprestige said:
You've got it entirely backwards. The prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

It's not the defendant's job to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's narrative.
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I understand that, but I'm saying I don't see much room for reasonable doubt. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence. The defendant doesn't have to testify, does he? Apparently he chose to. He's trying to explain it away. If the jury is convinced that all of the evidence presented by the prosecution adds up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that it enough.
 
Puppycow said:
I understand that, but I'm saying I don't see much room for reasonable doubt. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence. The defendant doesn't have to testify, does he? Apparently he chose to. He's trying to explain it away. If the jury is convinced that all of the evidence presented by the prosecution adds up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that it enough.
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Yep a defendant can't be forced to testify, they have a constitutional right to remain silent, to not be forced to self incriminate.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Foreign trees, coming over here, squatting in, and becoming part of, aesthetically pleasing vistas. Oh, it's a wall built by foreigners, pull that down and return the stones...
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In fact, that happened during the Jacobite rising. General Wade pulled a lot of it down to build a road so he could move his army about so as to be able to repel the army of foreigners* commanded by Charles Stuart.

* not as many Scots involved as you might have expected.
 
theprestige said:
You've got it entirely backwards. The prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

It's not the defendant's job to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's narrative.
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It is if you don't want the jury to accept the prosecution's story that you were definitely there when the crime happened because your car was there and so was your mobile phone.
 
jeremyp said:
In fact, that happened during the Jacobite rising. General Wade pulled a lot of it down to build a road so he could move his army about so as to be able to repel the army of foreigners* commanded by Charles Stuart.

* not as many Scots involved as you might have expected.
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Yes the B6318 'Military Road' that follows the line of the wall and is mistaken by some as being an old Roman Road.
Long stretches of it are actually built on the foundations of the wall itself.

Wade didn't have anything to do with the construction of the B6318 but it was built between 1751, and 1758 after his death.
 
jeremyp said:
In fact, that happened during the Jacobite rising. General Wade pulled a lot of it down to build a road so he could move his army about so as to be able to repel the army of foreigners* commanded by Charles Stuart.

* not as many Scots involved as you might have expected.
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The seven men of Moidart must have multiplied. And about those French troops Charlie was so confident would arrive...
 
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