UKH

Two men charged

https://news.sky.com/story/two-men-charged-over-felling-of-sycamore-gap-tre...

I figured they had given up trying to find the culprits.

It will be interesting to see how the trial goes.

What's the maximum penalty for cutting down a tree? I doubt it's enough.

I think they had to call in Special Branch

Hopefully this time they'll get to the root of it all.

I’d make them eat all the sawdust they produced until it makes them sick, a more just punishment would be hard to find. 

That’s a rubbish joak. 

Haven't some Elders already suggested Yew should bring back the Birch. 

If they get sent to prison then I doubt that anyone will pine for them.

No leaf was left (unturned)

I think they should plant the perpetrators where the tree was, using stocks, and invite the public to visit the new installation with a traditional fruity offering

Take a bough!

Becoming someone's prison beech?

Apparently they spent a lot of time aspen questions 

Maybe we need a new crime for this kinda stuff. Charged for being an absolute f*kwit, stupidity above and beyond, conspiracy to make yourself into a total pr1k, etc. Named and shamed, PFB1

Typical police though, not finished the job. I thought  they were looking for tree fella's?

They had no option but to go out on a limb.

It took the copse long enough! 

Criminal Damage is too soft, they should be hung for treeson!

Although I've twigged that this thread will just be full of puns.. 

.. It's a really interesting case, chopping down somebody's tree would usually not be a major crime. Although criminal damage is on the chargr sheet, the crime seems to be more on the lines of enraging the public's sense of beauty, which is far more nebulous. 

Nebulous? The problem is linking people's actions to real consequences for them, and those around them. We aren't good at that.

It's interesting how people tolerate deforestation elsewhere, or ignore the reality that those uplands were once covered in trees, then have a meltdown over one tree. I'm surprised there wasn't a book of condolence or some other bilge started. 

Clearly police action has worked, no other 'special' trees were hurt, they've nipped the problem in the bud.

The question is how you can legally weigh that in a court.

If I chopped down a tree in your garden I would expect a small fine. 

The harm done by the criminal damage here is not to the landowner, but to millions of people who are emotionally invested in this scenery. 

What sentence would you impose on them? 

You see to answer that I have to expose some deep seated unpopular ideas I have about responsibility and consequences.  Don't know the full back story to the these individuals,  maybe it was a truly one off reckless act? I suspect it won't be and they will be surrounded by other stupid, selfish,  reckless things they do....all tolerated or even encouraged by friends or even family.  Don't get me started on what should happen to them....

Anyway returning to the two concerned, given the scale of public harm (not going to get into a side argument about if harm can be measured....physical, mental, environmental) I would force them to carry out some extremely visible and unpleasant community type work for many many hours. Maybe even podcast or broadcast it. Clearing blocked drains from public buildings, emptying dog poo bins, washing sea gull sh*t from bus shelter roofs? Not tree planting. 

Public harm? Zero harm, yeah it was novel, featured in a few films, that's it. 

If it had been an ash tree it would be dead anyway. And we’d all have moved on long ago.

Isn't it the case that they often 'know' but having enough to charge is a different thing.

Some very acorny puns here.

Happy days.

That being said ... others have rightly pointed out that this was much more of a moral crime than a particularly heinous illegal crime.  

My vote would be for community service on a reforestation project.  Could these guys get get 500(?) samplings/day into the ground in an 8 hr day.  200hrs = 25x days work = 12,500 samplings.   Even if only 50% survive ... that would be 6,250 new trees.  

3.5 tones of carbon sequestered per tree over 40 year life span ... that would take nearly 22,000 tones of carbon out the atmosphere too.

The irony of this punishment would be nice ...

They have also been charged with damaging Hadrians wall.

Intentional or reckless damage to a scheduled ancient monument can result in a custodial sentence 

Do you think the police are barking up the wrong tree?

Bring back the birch I say

Seem to recall when this happened there were several police at the scene, including I think the police and crime commissioner.

There are shops getting robbed that receive no response at all.

probably something to do with the TV coverage.

Just saying 

To be serious for a moment, how would the CPS prove that they intended to damage Hadrians Wall? Does the fact that their behaviour put the wall at risk constitute reckless behaviour? 

They cant be convicted for hurting peoples feelings but it seems that the penalties are a fine or up to two years in prison according to the below link. I'm hopeful that if they are convicted, aggravating factors given the cultural and historical importance of the area are accounted for.

I would really like to understand what the motivating factors were but I suspect it will be nothng more than mindless spite or simply antisocial behaviour, akin to fly tipping or keying someone's expensive car. There are just too many people who just dont give a sh*t about anybody else.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/46/section/28/enacted?view=plain#....

About 2,000 years ago, a new pre-EU (Brexit?) construction project in the form of a large boundary wall appears, a large wall from coast to coast in some wild, remote beautiful scenery, and no outcry (try putting a phone mast in a wild place in Scotland today and see what happens).  And later on, lots of the wall stone gets pillaged for constructing other local buildings: no outcry.

A few years later, the entire landscape is covered in trees, but they all slowly get cut down, and the landscape is largely barren and deforested and suffering from erosion.  No outcry.

A single lone tree that may have self-planted about 150 years ago gets recently mysteriously cut down.  Huge public outcry, loads of police time expended, possibly investigating some nebulous crime. Shops in local cities pilfered and shop-lifted: very little police time expended.

Go figure ....

The offence is reckless or intentional damage. They may not have intended to damage the wall but didn't care if it got damaged.

If someone pissed on the Cenotaph during a demo do you think that might lead to a court case?

Im not sure of the point you're making but I would assume that there are already laws around public decency, exposure etc which might cover such a situation.

All of which are basically about hurting people's feelings. (Which you said they couldn't be convicted for.

There are crimes that don't require actual physical harm or financial loss.

Actually in this case there could be a reasonable finanancial cost (clean up, loss of tourist revenue, even wasting police time etc)

OK Im with you now.

I think public indecent exposure etc is different to 'boo hoo, I cant have my picture taken next to Robin Hood's tree etc*' and has a basis in law. I get the other stuff about police time, cost recovery etc but these are not likely to be serious offences and would likely end up with a caution rather than anything else, or perhaps even a civil case rather than criminal. The latter would be weighed against the likelihood of costs vs chances of actual recovery.

Damaging of historic or scheduled monuments could be much more serious though and hopefully this is what they get done for.

*I was using this as an example. I actually feel quite sad about the loss of the tree.

Can you give an example?

Bizarrely if starting from scratch you wouldn't be allowed to plant so close to a scheduled monument because of the risk of root damage. 

If I'm not mistaken this was the rationale behind the small circular enclosure a few feet in front of the felled tree. Inside is a small sycamore which (it was hoped) would grow up to become as big and iconic as it's large neighbour. When the original began to undermine the Wall they'd take it out. I think this may have been before the big tree became so well known. Unfortunately, the little sycamore has never seemed that healthy anyway.

True. I think you have to declare large trees within 5 metres of your home and if they were so close as to possibly damage the home in a storm or root damage to drains then you'd either not get cover or they would have exclusions on the policy.

Also, I might be incorrect but AFAIR sycamore are an introduced, non-native maple species too so not even a good old English oak or beech.

Isn’t that part of the reason for the current upset?  It was a lone surviving tree for which many people had developed a strong emotional attachment, that cannot be replaced in any of our lifetimes. And it seems to have been done as a deliberate snd premeditated act of spite.

The deforestation of the past is regrettable but was done in different, harder times for practical reasons of agriculture and survival, not through petty malice.

But that would make Robin Hood Price of Thieves historically inaccurate. Surely not?

At least Kevin Costner's olde English accent was spot on

I am not sure there was "no outcry" although admittedly since it was being built by a bunch of people who kept a sword alongside their pickaxe anyone objecting may well have kept quiet.

It was one which seems to have been kept specifically for aesthetic reasons.

The first account of a Sycamore is thought to be at Lyte in 1578 but it may have come into Scotland earlier, still later than our Robin Hood. Funnily enough Robin Hood managed to travel to Nottingham from Dover via Hadrian's wall in the film, also he encountered the even more recent Corsican Pine plantation and a grey squirrel. Honestly it's enough to make you want to cancel Xmas and stop all the mercy killings

Well exactly, and as someone who lives very close to the major oak and what's left of Sherwood Forest, I have been searching high and low for the lovely flowing river in which Robin fought Little John over his father's amulet thingy. All I can find is the (not unpleasant in places) 'river' Maun, which when not in spate is the width of my home office table.

Hi

yes, on the news either on the same day or that week there was news about shops being robbed and owners at risk, and no response at all

they must have been investigating tree related crime 

That's easy, it's in North Yorkshire....;p

Right, that's it, defund movies, cancel the license fee etc!

At least Aysgarth isn't far from Hardraw, but I've had closer ensuite showers. 

Hmm, my ancestor....The famous reiver Murdo Num Num McTavish set off numerous smoke signals from damp peat fires. No outcry...! Pah

It’s far more onerous than that with scheduled monuments. If you wanted to plant a tree you would need permission from the Secretary of State for media, culture and sport (obtained via historic England) otherwise it would be a criminal offence. 

Nicky Campbell show, 5 live earlier this week, a whole hours worth of examples. 

I knew him, came from Forfar and went by the nick-name Bridie Num Num. 

Did he have an elephants ear?

do you think there would have been a significant outcry against a Roman construction project in a heavily militarised zone ?