EXCLUSIVE Sycamore Gap Trial: Lawyer compares felling of famous tree to 'murder' and hopes punishing of vandals will 'set a new tone' for cases involving the destruction of the natural world
A lawyer specialising in the protection of historic trees has compared the cutting down of Britain's beloved Sycamore Gap to murder and expressed hopes the case will 'set a new tone' for cases involving the destruction of the natural world.
On the latest episode of the Mail's 'The Trial of the Sycamore Gap' series, award-winning crime reporters Liz Hull and George Odling as well as tree lawyer Sarah Dodd, reacted to the news that Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, had been found guilty of cutting down the famous tree next to Hadrian's Wall.
The pair, both from Cumbria, drove for 30 miles through a storm, then filmed themselves cutting down the iconic landmark in the early hours of September 28, 2023.
They face up to ten years in prison, having been found guilty of causing £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree and £1,144 of damage to Hadrian's Wall, a Unesco World Heritage Site. The verdicts were delivered after only five hours of deliberations.
Asked by Mr. Odling whether justice could ever feel as though it had been done after the destruction of a 150-year-old tree, Ms. Dodd, who set up a law firm which works to protect historic trees, said no reasonable jail sentence could account for its loss.
'It feels something like a murder', Ms Dodd told the podcast.
'Thankfully, in this case, the stump is resprouting slightly, and I know cuttings have been taken away that I am sure are being regrown. So, in terms of the Sycamore Gap tree, its legacy will live on.
'It certainly won't grow back to the specimen it was in our lifetimes. The positive I take from it all is, this landmark case will hopefully set a new tone for how courts deal with cases involving trees like this. This has established the felling of trees as a crime the courts take seriously.
'What this shows is that those cases where planning issues crop up, where there is damage to a protected tree for any other reason – it sets a tone and allows the courts to feel comfortable in imposing harsher punishments.
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'This guilty verdict is part of the puzzle in increasing the severity of sentencing and fines and by doing that, increasing the protection to trees.'
Ms Dodd, who works in the valuing of trees for cases such as the trial of the Sycamore Gap, hinted at how prosecutors may have come to the figure of £622,191 worth of criminal damage.
'In the UK, we have a couple of tree valuing systems', Ms Dodd explained.
'The system that was used in this case is called CAVAT – the capital asset value system. They review the tree and put in certain calculations, and come out with a value figure.
'This figure reflects the amenity value of the tree. Stuff like size and circumference are considered, as well as how many people see the tree and enjoy it.'
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Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Life on seaside town estate where locals are plagued by cannabis smoking louts and where 'most people have been to prison or been robbed'
With its sweeping beaches, gentle waves and rows of brightly coloured chalets, picturesque Scarborough draws millions of visitors every year. The historic North Yorkshire resort, dubbed the Jewel of the North, boasts elegant Victorian architecture, a historic castle, and some of the most stunning views in Britain. Yet, just a mile from the bustling seafront and promenade lies a very different town - not seen on the postcards. Tucked behind the tourist trail is Barrowcliff, a post-war housing estate that has long been associated with drugs, crime and poverty. This is a place where buses once refused to stop, where the stench of cannabis hangs in the air, and where even Father Christmas stayed away after being targeted by yobs. Mother-of-three Anoushka Waller, 46, who has lived on the estate for 25 years, said: 'You've got to be tough to live around here but I can deal with it. Some people can be a bit vicious and vindictive, and they want to cause trouble. 'There's a lot of weed around here. You breathe it in walking down the street like it's fresh air, there's that much of it. 'It's not great when the kids are playing in the street and there's the smell of cannabis everywhere. 'The police have raided a lot of places – they come searching fairly often. 'But when trouble happens, I don't think they get out here fast enough.' Another woman, Kerry, 47, who has lived on the estate her whole life, told how appearances from Father Christmas were scrapped after yobs tried to mug his charity float. She said: 'The bus didn't pull up on this side of the street for years because the drivers were too scared to come down here. 'They stopped Santa coming up for about 10 years because someone tried robbing him. 'That's how bad it got. 'But I've lived here all my life. It's my home. 'People say it's dangerous and we're all crazy but we're the nicest people you could meet. 'If you spent a day on this estate you'd have the biggest laugh you'd ever had in your life.' Barrowcliff has been at the centre of a strong-armed police response to drive out crime and anti-social behaviour. Pictures released by North Yorkshire Police in recent months show officers raiding terraced houses and carting off suspected drug dealers. When Mail Online visited the estate on a warm Friday night, school-age children loitered in the street on scooters while the smell of cannabis hung firmly in the air. But there was a general calm with no sign of rowdy teens causing trouble or drug dealing. One woman, Julie, told Mail Online: 'If you're right with people, they'll be right with you. 'Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of trouble. 'I've been robbed at knifepoint, my door's been beaten down and my child was knocked unconscious. 'I was Tasered by police because I was chasing criminals down the street. 'You've got to stand up for yourself around here. 'I've been to jail, my son's been to jail, my ex is in jail. It's not just the lads, it's the girls as well. 'It's just part of life.' She insisted: 'Barrowcliffe does drugs but it doesn't do hard drugs. Here it's about weed, nothing but weed. 'People have us down as Class A but it's cannabis. There aren't many who don't smoke it.' Her adult son, who did not give his name, added: 'The estate is better than it used to be. 'You wouldn't have been able to get on the estate a few years ago. They would have nicked your camera. 'But there are too many grasses now so people have moved out to do their s*** elsewhere.' In 2024, a Home Office strategy called 'Clear, Hold, Build' was launched in Barrowcliff to root out crime. In March, specialist police officers rammed through doors to execute drug warrants on Wreyfield Drive – the latest in a series of dramatic raids on the estate. Two months earlier, a teenage drug dealer who attacked another male with a shovel on Barrowcliff Road was detained for six years in a young offender institution. Matthew Heap, 18, described by police as a 'well-known figure on the estate', battered his victim repeatedly over the head, leaving him with multiple injuries. When arrested, Heap was also found in possession of 30 wraps of heroin and a 'burner' phone. Police said upon sentencing: 'Heap is a well-known figure on the Barrowcliff estate, and we believe some witnesses hesitated to come forward due to fear of repercussions.' Despite taking Heap off the streets, locals warned that someone else would be ready to take his place. A father of four, who had lived on the street for a decade, said: 'The police come all the time and nick people for drugs. 'Some of them don't come back – either prison or they get shipped elsewhere. 'The problem is as soon as one dealer goes, another comes takes his place. It's like a virus you can't get rid of.' Ewa Winkler, 37, moved to Scarborough from Lodz in Poland with her 12-year-old son. She said she preferred life in the Barrowcliff estate to her 'crazy' native home. She said: 'People said I was mad to move here – that it was dangerous. But I've lived here for four years and it's pretty quiet. 'In Lodz, I was scared to go out anywhere. Here, I'm going out at 9pm and nothing happens. 'Compared to Poland, it's a different world. 'A few weeks ago my son was beaten up in front of the takeaway which wasn't a nice situation. 'But I think that was a one-off. 'There were a lot of kids running drugs but that's changed in the past couple of years. 'The place has definitely improved.' Locals say the estate has improved in recent years thanks to a crackdown on drug dealing and anti-social behaviour, but they admit life on the margins can still be tough - especially for families raising children. Mother of three Anne-Marie Earle, 40, said: 'I love it here - but it is crap. 'It's crap for the young ones because they can't go anywhere or do anything. 'They're just left to their own devices on the street. That's when you get the criminal damage and the vandalism - because they're bored. Because there's nowt to do. 'You've got to be tough around here - it's Barrowcliff. You can smell the drugs everywhere. 'It can get a bit lively during the evening. You hear all the sirens and all the smack heads are walking about. 'We're desperate for this to be a better place for the children.' Scarborough, despite its Victorian grandeur, is considerably poorer than the rest of North Yorkshire, with the highest levels of homelessness and the poorest health outcomes. The town has long been a target for County Lines drug gangs - criminal networks who exploit teenagers to sell Class A drugs. 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'A major investment in Scarborough is also planned through the Government's Plan for Neighbourhoods initiative, which has seen £20 million allocated to the town to support regeneration, create job opportunities, and improve health and wellbeing.' North Yorkshire Police coast commander, Superintendent Rachel Wood, added: 'North Yorkshire Police works collaboratively with North Yorkshire Council in Scarborough to combat crime and disorder to make it a safe space for residents, businesses, and visitors. 'When necessary, we do utilise dispersal powers to quickly deal with arising anti-social behaviour, including incidents involving young people. We have issued 44 dispersal notices in the last six months alone. 'Our officers and PCSOs are fully engaged in the communities they serve and work with parents and local schools to help steer young people away from crime and anti-social behaviour. 'We also actively detect and deter drug dealing, including those involved in County Lines. 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Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I was branded Britain's most hated woman for buying twin babies online for £8k in 'cash for babies scandal'... here's what happened next
She was branded the most hated woman in Britain after paying more than £8,000 to buy twin babies from the US on the internet. Judith Kilshaw found herself at the centre of an international scandal after adopting the six-month old girls who had already been sold to a childless couple in America. More than 20 years on, Judith admits her life had been 'plagued' by the global controversy which ended with her losing the children - along with her home and her marriage. But defiant Judith, 71, insists she has 'no regrets' and told how she has not given up hope of being reunited with the twins. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline from her home in Wrexham, Judith told MailOnline: 'I have thought a lot about the case over the years and asked myself if I regretted doing it. 'To a certain extent it has plagued my life - it never goes away. 'It was a nightmare to start with but time heals things. There's bigger things to think about. 'But I have no regrets. I thought I could give the girls a better life and give them opportunities in life. Alan and Judith Kelshaw (pictured) sparked a 'cash-for babies' outcry in 2001 after they paid £8,200 to adopt Kiara and Keyara Wecker 'I would still love to talk to the girls to make sure they are OK and answer any questions they might have. 'I am open to speaking to them but I have never spoken to them. But if they wanted to, I would love to get in touch.' Judith and her solicitor husband Alan sparked a 'cash-for babies' outcry in 2001 after they paid £8,200 to adopt Kiara and Keyara Wecker. They brought the twins, who they renamed Belinda and Kimberley, to Britain hoping to start a new life as a family at their seven-bedroom farmhouse in Buckley, north Wales. But things did not go according to plan. Then-prime minister Tony Blair called the adoption deal 'disgusting' and the twins were seized by social services and taken into emergency protection. 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Before the baby storm erupted, the couple had lived an anonymous, if somewhat eccentric, middle-class life in rural north Wales. They already had two sons and Judith had two grown up children from her first marriage. The couple wanted to have a daughter together but Judith was too old to conceive. They had spent £4,000 on unsuccessful IVF treatment and had looked into surrogacy before they turned to an online adoption agency in desperation. The US-based agency called A Caring Heart was run by Tina Johnson who was acting on behalf of the mother of the mixed race twins, Tranda Wecker, who was aged 28 at the time. Tranda, a hotel receptionist from Missouri, had fallen pregnant as her second marriage was coming to an end and had decided to part with her children. Unbeknown to Judith and Alan, the broker had already arranged the adoption of the twins with Californian couple Richard and Vickie Allen. They had paid £4,000 for the adoption and had cared for them for two months. Tranda reportedly had a change of heart and, while the couple were in the process of finalising legal paperwork, she was given permission to say a final farewell to her daughters. The American couple were told that Tranda wanted to spend two days with the twins - but instead they were handed to Judith and Alan. They set off with the twins to get their birth certificates before making a gruelling 1,500-mile car journey to Little Rock Arkansas, where adoption is relatively easy, with the Allens in hot pursuit. After a five-minute hearing the couple return to Britain with the twins and their adoption papers. But the FBI were called in to probe the case amid a bitter transatlantic war of words and a legal battle over the girls' future. The children were returned to the US in April 2001 where they were placed in foster care before a third set of parents eventually raised them. Judith has always insisted she did nothing wrong or illegal and believed the adoption would be in the best interests of the twins. But, in the aftermath of the affair, the couple racked up debts of £70,000. They were forced to quit the farmhouse where they lived with three of Judith's children along with six dogs, more than a dozen cats, two ferrets, a horse, a pony and two pot-bellied pigs. In the wake of her fight, Judith tried to get elected as an MP in 2005 after standing as an independent candidate in her local Alyn and Deeside constituency insisting she wanted to 'stand up for the little people'. She split with Alan in 2006 and three years later she married Stephen Sillett, who was described at the time as a busker. In the aftermath of the split, Judith was investigated for alleged benefits fraud arising from her living arrangements following the break-up. In a bizarre twist, Alan gave his ex-wife away when she married Stephen at Wrexham Register Office in 2009. She had a volatile relationship with her third husband and in 2012, Judith pleaded guilty at Wrexham Magistrates Court to assaulting Stephen after hitting over the head with a Christmas bauble following a row. Stephen had accused Judith, who now goes by her married name Sillett, of having an affair, she says. Judith told MailOnline: 'It was hardly crime of the century. He probably deserved it. 'However we stayed together. We are still legally married but have split up. 'We're still friends and speak all the time.' Meanwhile Alan had been struck down with pulmonary fibrosis, a serious lung disease, which left him in hospital for months before his death. Judith told how Stephen became jealous as she nursed her ex husband through his illness which led to her giving up her job as a cleaner in the Co-op. She told MailOnline: 'There were three of us in the relationship and men can't really handle that can they? 'I think he didn't like the attention I was giving Alan.' Of her life now she added: 'I now live with my son. I don't work as I have retired but I'm a bit of an agony aunt to all my friends.' Speaking from his terraced home in a village near Wrexham, Stephen, now 58, said: 'We're still legally married but are not together anymore. 'I don't think we can afford to get divorced.' Judith heard nothing more about the fate of the twins until 2018 when it was revealed they were starting university after being brought up by a loving churchgoing family in Missouri. Their adoptive mother said at the time: 'They have grown into fine young women, each with their own dreams and ambitions.' Since then two TV documentaries have been made about the case - one called Three Mothers, two Babies and a Scandal, which was shown on Amazon Prime in 2022 while a second named The Baby Scandal That Shocked The World was screened on Channel 5 last year. Judith told MailOnline: 'The case and furore of it all, never really goes away. 'In fact I was recognised by a woman in the supermarket the other day. 'She kept on staring at me, trying to work out who I was. Then she spoke to me asking if I was the woman from the babies case. 'She recognised me from being on telly a few years ago, but it was positive. She said I came across really well.'
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- The Guardian
Thousands of UK government laptops, phones and tablets have been lost or stolen
Thousands of UK government laptops, phones and tablets worth more than £1m have been either lost or stolen, freedom of information disclosures have revealed, triggering warnings of a 'systemic risk' to the nation's cybersecurity. The Department for Work and Pensions recorded 240 missing laptops and 125 missing phones in 2024; while in the first five months of this year the Ministry of Defence recorded 103 missing laptops and 387 missing phones. The Cabinet Office, which coordinates government activity, lost or had stolen 66 laptops and 124 phones in 2024. The replacement cost of the more than 2,000 missing devices recorded across 18 Whitehall departments and public authorities in the last year for which figures are available is running at about £1.3m annually, according to Guardian analysis of freedom of information responses. The Bank of England, HM Treasury and the Home Office were among other departments where dozens of phones and laptops went missing. Cybersecurity experts said the losses could enable hackers to create backdoors into government systems even if large parts of the hardware were encrypted. One called it 'a huge national security risk', but the government downplayed the danger, saying that encryption prevented access to bad actors. 'These are surprisingly large numbers,' said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey. 'When you are talking about so many [it creates] a large attack surface [for hackers]. If 1% were system administrators who had their phones stolen, that's enough to get in.' He said that if devices were open when stolen, as frequently happens with phones snatched on the street, criminals could keep them open and 'drill down into the device and once the phone is open, by design it is readable and accessible'. The Ministry of Defence said it had robust policies and procedures to prevent losses and thefts. It said: 'Encryption on devices ensures any data is safeguarded and prevents access to the defence network.' The Bank of England said it 'takes the security of devices and data very seriously and has suitable protection in place'. A government spokesperson said: 'We take the security of government devices extremely seriously, which is why items such as laptops and mobile phones are always encrypted so any loss does not compromise security.' It added that every loss or theft was investigated. 'The device loss seems quite high,' said Nick Jackson, the chief information security officer at Bitdefender, a cybersecurity firm. 'It only takes one lost [device] to compromise a network. It poses a systemic risk and is something that could potentially be taken more seriously especially given the access and connections that department will have.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion He said laptops were likely to have encryption, but tablets or phones presented a greater risk. Jackson said: 'The biggest risk is that the devices themselves will have access to sensitive information and authentication tokens. If someone was able to gain access to those they would be able complete authentication processes on any government application or government website that they shouldn't be able to access.' The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which is responsible for cybersecurity, recorded 83 phones and 18 laptops lost or stolen in the year to May 2025. In 2024, the Home Office, which oversees policing, had 147 devices go missing at an estimated replacement cost of more than £85,000. An MoD spokesperson said: 'We treat all breaches of security very seriously and we require all suspected breaches to be reported. All incidents are subjected to an initial security risk assessment, with further action taken on a proportionate basis.' David Gee, the chief marketing officer of Cellebrite, a digital forensics and cybersecurity firm that works with the Metropolitan police, said: 'Missing devices pose a huge national security risk, especially coming from public sector departments where they hold vast amounts of sensitive data. From healthcare departments to defence, staff phones and laptops must be protected at all costs, and keeping data safe in these government agencies should be a top priority.'
