LONDON >> Vandals who cut down England’s beloved Sycamore Gap tree were sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in prison for damaging the country’s natural heritage and for the outrage and distress they caused.

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers set out with a chainsaw on a dark and stormy night in 2023 to carry out what a prosecutor called a “moronic mission” and toppled the majestic sycamore onto Hadrian’s Wall.

Graham, 39, and Carruthers, 32, were each convicted of two counts of criminal damage — one for destroying the tree, the other for damaging the ancient wall that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Justice Christina Lambert sentenced the pair in Newcastle Crown Court to four years and three months in prison because there was a high degree of premeditation and planning to destroy the tree and because the act had angered and saddened so many people.

Lambert concluded the two had largely done it for the “sheer bravado.”

“Felling the tree in the middle of the night and in the middle of a storm gave you some sort of thrill,” she said. “You reveled in the coverage, taking evident pride in what you had done, knowing that you were responsible for the crime which so many were talking about.”

First for a crime against a tree

Sarah Dodd, a lawyer specializing in tree law, said it was the first time in the U.K. that someone had been sent to prison for illegally felling a tree.

“Today felt profoundly sad. There are no winners,” Dodd said. “The Sycamore Gap tree wasn’t just wood and leaves. It was a marker of memory, history, belonging.”

The tree, in a saddle between two hills, had been known to locals but became famous after a cameo in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.” It drew tourists, lovers, landscape photographers and those who spread the ashes of loved ones. It was voted English “Tree of the Year” in 2016.

At trial, the two men testified they were at their homes on the night in question and had nothing to do with destroying the tree.

But faced with spending up to 10 years behind bars, they changed their tune when interviewed by a probation officer in advance of sentencing, although they sought to minimize their culpability, the judge said.

Culprits admit some culpability

Carruthers said he drank a bottle of whisky after a rough day and everything was a blur, Lambert said. While Graham admitted he had joined Carruthers on the journey, he said he was shocked that his former friend had actually cut the tree down.

“Although there may be grains of truth in what you have each said, I do not accept that your explanations to the probation officers are wholly honest or the whole story,” Lambert said.