Adam Carruthers, 33, was jailed in May 2025 after being convicted alongside his former friend Daniel Graham, 40, with whom he felled the much-loved tree
The man who felled the Sycamore Gap tree has been freed from prison after serving just 10 months of his four year and three month sentence.
Adam Carruthers, 33, was jailed in May 2025 after being convicted alongside his former friend Daniel Graham, 40. A court heard how the travelled together to fell the much-loved tree and damage to Hadrian’s Wall in September 2023.
Carruthers felled the tree with a chainsaw while Graham filmed him. The pair fell out before they came to trial. Now Carruthers, of Wigton, Cumbria, has been freed under curfew with an electronic tag. He has returned to work at Cumbria Turf in Kirkbride, the business identified as his employer during his trial.
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Asked if he was happy to be out of jail, he told ITV News that he was, and confirmed that he was back to work. Steve Blair, general manager from Twice Brewed Inn, near Sycamore Gap, said he was “shocked” to learn of Carruthers’ return home.
The pub, which welcomes many walkers along Hadrian’s Wall, is home to a slice of the felled tree. Carruthers has been released under the government’s Home Detention Curfew Scheme, which allows prisoners to serve part of their sentence at home.
They are expected to wear an electronic tag, and to spend between nine and around 12 hours a day at their registered home address. Both Carruthers and Graham, from near Carlisle, were sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment.
They were told by the judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, they would serve a maximum of 40 percent of the sentence. That would have meant Carruthers would have been released in January 2027.
But under the Home Detention Curfew Scheme, prisoners can be released after serving half of that time, a date which, for Carruthers, would have been March 15 this year. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Anyone released into Home Detention Curfew faces strict licence conditions and must be tagged. Those who break the rules can be returned to prison.” One walker in Northumberland said it was “unbelievable” and “he shouldn’t be at liberty”. They added: “I’m not every impressed about that at all.
“For what he’s done – what he’s done for this area and wjhat he’s done to our culture, no, he shouldn’t be allowed to do that.” Another man said: “How important that is – it might be a little soon in the measurement of punishment.” Jurors heard how Graham, of Millbeck Stables, Carlisle, and Carruthers, of Church Street, Wigton, drove for 40 miles from the Carlisle area to the Sycamore Gap site on 28 September 2023. The court was shown a video, found on Graham’s phone, showing Carruthers as he chopped down the tree, before it fell backwards onto Hadrian’s Wall. It caused £622,191 of criminal damage to the tree as well as causing £1,144 of damage to Hadrian’s Wall, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Both are owned by the National Trust.
Neighbours in Wigton, Cumbria where he grew up described him as a ‘bit of an idiot’ who enjoyed riding a mobility scooter as a child. Locals said the plot saw the man with no friends – Graham – team up with the man with no brains, Carruthers.
Graham admitted in court that he did not socialise with people apart from his ‘bird’ and Carruthers briefly after they met. But they fell out and blamed each other for the crime that shocked the nation.
Carruthers was a ‘bit of an idiot’ according to friends in his hometown of Wigton. He and Graham had shared a video of the sycamore being chopped down as they left the scene following what was described in court as their ‘moronic mission’ which shocked the world.
The prosecution also claimed the men took a wedge from the tree as a trophy. It was never found. But it is believed that Carruthers had decided to take it as a trophy following the birth of his second child.
Judge Lambert said she believed he and Graham were “both equally culpable” for felling the tree when they were jailed last July.
