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00:01One's for sorrow, two's for joy
00:09Three's for a girl and four's for a boy
00:17Five's for silver, six for gold
00:23Seven's for a secret never told
00:32Devil, devil, I defy thee
00:39Devil, devil, I defy thee
00:46Devil, devil, I defy thee
00:55Good morning, everybody. We had Storm Agnes yesterday.
01:08That brought some strong winds and some heavy rains
01:10towards northern and western areas of the UK,
01:12but Agnes is no more. It's going to be much quieter today for many of us, actually.
01:16We've got some sunny smells around this morning.
01:18It was actually a really miserable morning.
01:20You know, there was no sunlight breaking through.
01:22It was quite bleak.
01:24But it had been really windy the night before.
01:30About seven o'clock in the morning,
01:31a guy in the photography WhatsApp group that we were part of
01:34dropped a picture in the group of Sycamore Gap Tree,
01:36but it was on its side.
01:39It was a very pixelated picture.
01:41You couldn't really see it very clear.
01:43And I was like, that's got to be a Photoshop.
01:44You know?
01:45And all the lads in the group were like,
01:46nah, can't it be real?
01:47Can't it be real?
01:48I don't think it's real.
01:51Buses, I'll fly up,
01:53and we're just basically headed straight to the tree, you know?
01:59I knew from the military road,
02:00you could get a good sight of the tree side on.
02:02I pulled up on the military road, got my camera,
02:17my big lens out, aimed it at the tree.
02:20I was like, oh, my God, it is.
02:21It's down.
02:32We're headed up to the tree.
02:33It was about eight o'clock-ish.
02:35When we got to the tree, just, like, gobsmacked.
02:39Absolutely gobsmacked.
02:45I documented it all, and I recorded a video, you know,
02:48put it on my social media platforms.
02:49I was like, look, this is actually happening.
02:51Absolutely shocking.
02:53Destroyed forever.
02:55It's really sad, isn't it?
03:02I remember thinking,
03:03it's as if somebody's went along with a still-so
03:05and cut the time bridge down.
03:08The sorrow around, you know, just the sadness.
03:11It was horrendous.
03:18I remember going on a social media,
03:20and it was just the most sickening, sickening feeling.
03:25For astronomers like me,
03:28the sycamore gap was particularly special
03:30because it's so photogenic with the symmetry.
03:42Seeing the tree lying there, dead,
03:46it just felt, it felt like it was a murder.
03:49My initial thought was, has the storm taken it down?
03:58But when it was hinted very, very early on,
04:02no, no, no, someone's actually,
04:04some people, someone's done this.
04:05You can see the markings on the tree.
04:07You can see all this stuff.
04:09It completely changed.
04:11Who in the right mind would do this, you know?
04:23You're talking about psychopaths.
04:26Something awful's happened up at Sycamore Gap.
04:28We've just managed to stand this up in the last few minutes.
04:30The famous tree at Sycamore Gap has been cut down.
04:33It's like stealing joy.
04:35That tree was ours.
04:36I'm sitting in a car park, weeping.
04:38All that remains is a stump.
04:40It was palpable, the shock in the community.
04:53I saw it on Facebook.
04:55I remember seeing the pictures, thinking it's a joke.
04:57Is it April?
05:01Disbelief.
05:02Anger.
05:03You literally had your head in your hands going,
05:04I can't believe this is happening.
05:06You just don't understand why.
05:14It was such a bizarre thing to happen.
05:16We just couldn't work out why anybody would want to do that.
05:19It had to be something malicious.
05:23It would have to have been cut down
05:25because some brain-dead idiot thought it would be good fun.
05:37I was at work and I started hearing across the office
05:40that the tree had been felled or had fallen over.
05:44No one knew what had happened.
05:47So 999 calls are coming in.
05:49Nothing to be a police. How can I help?
05:51I've been shocked as he reports that the tree at Sycamore Gap
05:54has been cut down.
05:56The tree has been felled overnight.
05:59It's all like the social media.
06:00Apparently someone felled in the tree at Sycamore Gap.
06:03I don't know if you're aware.
06:04I'm not aware at all.
06:05It will be on the national news tonight, I guarantee it.
06:10Yeah.
06:11Yeah, just to confirm, there's a variety of folk taking photographs.
06:14Police officers were dispatched to identify what was happening
06:17and, in essence, get that scene controlled.
06:20If you could just clear back a tad
06:22just so we can gather as much evidence as we can, OK?
06:25Thank you very much.
06:29Right, I cannot see any property lying about.
06:32I cannot see any oil.
06:34I can't see any footprints.
06:36Obviously, every man and his dogs trailed through here this morning.
06:40There has been spray paint, sprayed around the base.
06:44There's a clean cut three quarters of the way through.
06:47There might be a local tree surgeon, to be fair.
06:56In this case, the victim is, for want of a better word, the tree, really.
07:01So, straight away, it's criminal damage.
07:04Someone has unlawfully cut that tree down.
07:07There was damage to Hadrian's wall, as well.
07:11I work in the major investigation team
07:13and the majority of the incidents that we do with are homicides, criminal damage.
07:18There isn't generally something that crops up in any of my investigations.
07:21And my experience around trees, felling, anything like that, is pretty much zero.
07:27So, I identified Detective Inspector Callum Meagle, because he worked in the rural crime team.
07:34I never thought that I'd be in a position like I am today, talking about a criminal damage.
07:44Because that is what it is.
07:49The fact that somebody had chopped down the Sycamore Gap tree.
07:53For me, it's an attack on people's...
07:56The way people live.
07:59The Sycamore Gap means an awful lot to a lot of people.
08:14So, the tree was planted about 130 years ago by a local landowner,
08:19in a dip between two escarpments, right next to Hadrian's wall that was built centuries ago.
08:28To people of the North East, it's been somewhere that has been visited for an awful long time.
08:36Families would make a yearly pilgrimage.
08:40People would go there and propose and scatter ashes.
08:44The tree has been through so much.
08:51World wars, storms.
08:54So, you always believe it's going to be here forever.
09:01It did feel like a friend.
09:02I know it sounds silly, but it felt like it was a gift.
09:07Just for you.
09:08So, yeah, it was really special.
09:10For sure.
09:15I wanted to find out who was responsible.
09:25Crime scene investigators were dispatched.
09:30When I reviewed the photographs, I could see a wedge and hinge method had been used to fell the tree.
09:36And I had a few puzzled faces as to, uh, how do you know that?
09:43Which I explained that my father was a forester, and so I understood the technicalities.
09:48So the wedge, it's like a big bit of cheese that you see in a supermarket.
09:56You know, it's that shape.
09:59And it is cut out on the side that you're going to fell the tree, and gets placed to one side.
10:06Our crime scene managers searched around the tree itself.
10:14However, we weren't able to find it.
10:18So we were minus the wedge.
10:22I thought, hmm, this is interesting.
10:26If you're going to do something of this sort of significance, you would take a trophy.
10:32And the most obvious section would be the wedge.
10:35So I made the decision not to release the fact that the wedge hadn't been recovered.
10:42I wanted to keep that quite tight in the investigation.
10:45If we were able to locate that wedge, we could find the person who has committed this crime.
10:52BBC Radio Newcastle.
10:56At two o'clock, police investigations are underway in Northumberland.
11:01Police were all over the hillside.
11:03It was like a murder scene.
11:08It's part of the fabric of our community.
11:11But today, a tree...
11:12We had every TV, news company asking for interviews.
11:18To the point of where I didn't know which one was which.
11:23This grand old sycamore fell.
11:25We thought someone was playing tricks on us, and then we saw the news.
11:28It's just mindless vandalism.
11:30Whoever's done this needs to do some serious time like it.
11:33Serious time.
11:34The video that I put on the social media, the post hit like over two million views.
11:37Which was just crazy.
11:38Because I only had like a couple of hundred people following us.
11:43And that's when all the rumours started to fly about.
11:46What do you think of it? That someone could do that?
11:50My guessing is maybe a disgruntled local farmer, don't like tourists, or just someone who's very sad.
11:55As soon as a case hit media, I knew that we would then generate intelligence.
12:04Nothing but a police, how can I help?
12:07Um, the lad who's local to the area, he's always joking about felling the tree at Sycamore Gat.
12:14And I don't know why you would want to do that, because it's probably the most iconic tree in Northumberland.
12:18Now I've got a feeling it possibly could have been him.
12:26One of the first calls made to police put forward a young lad from the local area, out of genuine concern.
12:35You know, it's just strange that he jokes about doing it.
12:38You know, it's a shit thing to do, I think.
12:43I remember wondering, could this have been committed by somebody younger in years, who hasn't seen the potential significance of his actions?
12:56So we need to act quickly and make sure that we don't lose pieces of evidence.
13:01Now the keeper would a hunt and go, and under his army carried a bow.
13:12All far to shoot the merry little doe, among the leaves so green-o.
13:17Jacky boy, master, singing well, very well.
13:19Hay down, ho down, derry, derry down, among the leaves so green-o.
13:23To my hay down, down, to my ho down, down.
13:26Hay down, ho down, derry, derry down, among the leaves so green-o.
13:29Now the first door he shall...
13:32Hull Whistle is the closest town to Sycamore Gap.
13:36There's the Pennines on one way and then there's the Roman Wall behind you.
13:40Jacky boy, master, singing well, very well.
13:42Hay down, ho down, derry, derry down, among the leaves so green-o.
13:44Edge of the world kind of place, I think.
13:47More like the frontier.
13:49The northern frontier.
13:51Among the leaves so green-o.
13:53No!
13:56I run a 14-bed holiday home.
13:58I run the local Facebook page for Visit Hull Whistle.
14:01I'm a local councillor on the town council.
14:04I volunteer in the charity shop and I also work one day a week in the shoe shop.
14:09And I'm supposed to be retired.
14:10In Hull Whistle, a lot of people depend on tourism and lots of people come to the area to visit the tree.
14:19Two chops.
14:20Yeah, brilliant, thank you.
14:22There's not much other than cattle and sheep and tourism.
14:26Flash!
14:27Sycamore Gap is just a tree on Hadrian's wall.
14:30Nobody ever thought about it.
14:31He talked about it or nothing until Kevin Costner came to do the film there.
14:35I am home!
14:37Woo!
14:38The tree looks absolutely fantastic in the film.
14:40It's unbelievable now that the tree has gone.
14:45People come into the pub at least a dozen times a day and they'll literally say,
14:49can you tell me where the tree is?
14:50The one that used to be in Robin Hood.
14:52We sell more Sycamore Gap than all of the other beers put together.
14:55We have a wine called Under the Sycamore.
14:58We have Sycamore Gap gin.
14:59And then I have a tree which lights up as well.
15:02So, yeah, anything but Sycamore.
15:07Everyone just wanted to know who it is, who's done it and why.
15:12Northumbria police have confirmed they've arrested a 16-year-old boy this afternoon.
15:17The tree in Sycamore Gap is...
15:19All of a sudden, I heard that a young 16-year-old kid was being arrested.
15:24And he was coming around this local area.
15:28We literally couldn't believe it.
15:30We couldn't understand why.
15:35Once the rumours started flying about the 16-year-old lad who was arrested,
15:39everybody started like a witch hunt.
15:41I remember going on social media and it was quite, like, pretty nasty stuff.
15:45And I was thinking, do I want to make sure this is actually correct, like,
15:50because this could ruin a kid's life.
15:52Everybody focused on him and it was going to be him.
15:57And I was like, you've got to think about it.
15:59How can a 16-year-old go up there and chop down that tree?
16:02It can't be him.
16:03Searches were conducted and also he was interviewed.
16:17He categorically denied being responsible for the criminal act.
16:22He provided an alibi, which checked out.
16:26So he was quickly ruled out of the investigation.
16:36I do know the 16-year-old and I know that it has had a negative effect on him.
16:40He was totally innocent.
16:42At that point in time, given the nature of the information that was passed to the investigation team,
16:52you have to have investigated that properly because that's justice.
16:59But the next arrest, we needed to get it right.
17:03There is anger and dismay in Britain this morning.
17:15A tree that has stood in northern England for hundreds of years has been chopped down.
17:21And police say it was a deliberate act of vandalism.
17:24The case of vandalism is just about England.
17:27The film with Kevin Costner and Morgan.
17:29Within 24 hours, it had gone from local to national to international, global news.
17:41The pressure that subsequently came with that is quite considerable.
17:46The tree stood in Northumberland in the north end of England.
17:54I needed to go up to the scene and search for potential evidence.
17:59So myself and Becky, the boss, travelled up together.
18:06It seemed quite surreal when I looked where the Sycamore Gap is.
18:09And it wasn't there anymore.
18:11That's when the gravity of what had happened started to sink in.
18:15We parked up in steel rig car park, which is the car park adjacent to where you would start the walk towards Sycamore Gap.
18:31The first thing was looking at which route would they have taken, what direction would they have come in.
18:35What would they have been carrying?
18:37Would it have been one person? Would it have been more than one person that was involved?
18:40I could see straight away the stump was laid bare.
18:49I knew that as soon as a cordon was taken down, people were going to be walking on the stump.
19:00So what I wanted to do was maintain the integrity of that first cut.
19:04So the best way that I could do that was to take a section of the entire stump.
19:10I think people were quite shocked, you know, it had already been cut once and now the police were coming and they were taking sections away.
19:26Actually having the surfaces that were cut on that night, we would have the best possible way of matching up tool marks to potential chainsaws.
19:34It was a scene that provided quite significant challenges.
19:43It's a very, very rural location.
19:46There's plenty of sheep, but unfortunately there are no cameras.
19:51There are no witnesses.
19:55We had the Twice Brood Inn that was as close to the scene that we were going to get.
20:04The police started coming in, looking at CCTV because we have it angled right round the pub.
20:16This camera looks across our car park and you can see Sycamore Gap over here in the corner.
20:21You couldn't quite see the tree because it's just in the dip, but you didn't see the military road right outside the front of the pub.
20:27The cameras do have automatic night vision as well.
20:29We had a little look, but I couldn't see anything.
20:36So he just downloaded everything he needed.
20:39We were like, imagine if there's someone parks in our car park and you see them take a chainsaw out.
20:44I'd be like, oh my God.
20:45So we're at a point now where we were really limited with what we had.
20:55We needed assistance from the local community.
20:58After the 16-year-old was released, there was lots of talk in the town about who and what and why and lots of theories of why people had done it.
21:15It was a social media dare. I thought, you have got to be joking.
21:26Everybody was like naming people.
21:29I think it was Bob who lives down the road. I think it was him. I think it was him. Just because they have a chainsaw.
21:35The thing is, most people around here have got chainsaws. I've even got a chainsaw.
21:46We've all got chainsaws.
21:47I've just seen someone make a bit of an odd post on Facebook that shared a meme about cutting a tree down with a butter knife.
21:58Share a post about cutting it down with a butter knife.
22:01Not about specifically cutting the Sycamore Gap tree down with a butter knife.
22:06One of the kids in my lesson today was talking about cutting down the tree the other day.
22:11I think he was your team and I was like, oh, right. It's a way of things to jerk about, isn't it?
22:17Yeah.
22:20I've got a possible suspect who's got a motive. We shall pass on to you. I've got no evidence.
22:26A local farmer believes they've got the name of the possible suspects.
22:31Right, OK. Have you got any details for the farm?
22:34We had quite a number of names being put forward.
22:37And there was a recurring name.
22:39There was a chap called . The name I've been given is .
22:45He's getting chucked out of his house. Part of the evidence against him has come from the National Trust.
22:50And who owns the Sycamore Gap tree National Trust?
22:54When you've got somebody being put forward on a number of occasions, it will always, you know, prick your interest.
23:01As a local living in Holtwistle, everyone is naming one man.
23:05He had knowledge and previous experience.
23:11And he also had a real motive to potentially commit this criminal act.
23:18That night, on day two, the second arrest was made.
23:24Certainly there was a potential grudge with the National Trust.
23:30Is this revenge?
23:31A second person has been arrested in connection with the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree.
23:38We've just been told that a man in his 60s has been arrested by Northumbria police.
23:43People are starting to think that somebody did this who had a grudge against the National Trust.
23:47Everyone believed it. Everyone in the local area started to think, OK, that makes sense. Maybe that's what happened.
23:56I hope they throw the book at, you know, whoever did it. We don't know who. We wait for some news.
24:00During the interview, he provided an account of his whereabouts, which we were able to confirm.
24:11He categorically denied any involvement, any knowledge.
24:15He said he wasn't fit enough to have committed this offence.
24:21So I was satisfied that he wasn't involved.
24:25And it was decided that he could be released.
24:29Come to the Chi with me, Malone.
24:34Within 48 hours, we had interviewed and bailed two people.
24:39We had names, we had people being put forward, but we really didn't have anything solid.
24:48As it happens, it was just complete hearsay. You know, it wasn't true at all.
24:57I got fed up of listening to, it could be this, it could be that.
25:02You need concrete proof. And I thought, the police, they need to get their act together.
25:09The eyes of the world were looking at this investigation.
25:12And what was Northumbria police doing about identifying who was responsible for cutting this famous tree down?
25:19Gun to the Chi with me, Malone.
25:32It was a hard period of time.
25:35We really didn't have anything to go on.
25:39I do get very invested in what I do, because if I lose interest, it would be a case that, you know, was never solved.
25:47But I was never going to lose interest in this.
25:53So, I went back through the calls.
25:55I'm phoning regarding the cut-down tree at Sycamore Gap.
25:56There was one witness who was in his campervan on that night.
26:14I was parked in the nearest car park, called Steel Rig Car Park, all night.
26:28As far as anybody knows, I've been the only vehicle here with no plausible explanation.
26:33So, I kind of don't want to be accused of cutting the tree down.
26:41When he woke up in Steel Rig Car Park to find quite a number of people there, he contacted Northumbria police.
26:47But the information he was able to provide was quite key.
26:54When I turned up in the car park, there was nobody here, and I turned up about ten, half ten.
27:01And obviously, I went to sleep.
27:02But at one o'clock in the morning, I was woken up by a vehicle leaving the car park.
27:06All I know is that it was a four by four of some description.
27:16I know that just by hearing it start up, because I'm a mechanic.
27:24I didn't hear it turn up, but it woke me when it left at one o'clock in the morning.
27:28That information meant that we could look at the Twice Brood Inn CCTV footage at that specific time.
27:41Round about one o'clock in the morning, you can see a set of lights.
27:49There's a vehicle travelling along the military road in a westerly direction.
27:59Almost an hour earlier, at 23.55 hours, there was a set of lights that had travelled in an easterly direction.
28:11In the background, you can see the vehicle turn off the military road, heading up the minor road and out of sight.
28:21Up that road is the Steel Rig car park.
28:31So that gave us 63 minutes, and that would give enough time to walk from the Steel Rig car park to the Gap, fell the tree, return and drive away past again.
28:54So now we can use other CCTV opportunities to start looking at the potential journey into the area.
29:04However, in October, everything changed.
29:14We received an anonymous tip-off, identifying two individuals, Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers.
29:25We'd never heard of those individuals before.
29:31The tip-off made mention of the fact that these two lads had retained a section of the tree.
29:39The fact that a piece of the tree hadn't been recovered, that information, that detail wasn't known.
29:48I think at that point, that's when I realised, actually, there's something significant here.
29:52You think, right, OK, what do we know about them? What do we need to know?
30:00Daniel Graham was on Facebook, has been a ground worker, and quite obviously, was involved in tree surgery.
30:10I was expecting that they would have been from the local community.
30:13However, both individuals reside in the Carlisle area, which is quite strange.
30:18There's quite a distance from Carlisle across to the Sycamore Gap tree.
30:28I remember taking a phone call from the intelligence unit.
30:32He said, I've ran the vehicles associated to them across ANPR.
30:36And he says, there's a Range Rover that's registered to Daniel Graham.
30:45And it travels from Cumbria into Northumbria police area.
30:50And then, an hour and a half later, travels back out again.
30:54And does exactly the same route, but in the reverse.
31:01Spoke to the boss and said, fasten yourself in.
31:03I think we've really got something going here.
31:05And it was at that point I raised them as suspects.
31:12I wanted to arrest simultaneously to prevent any collusion between the two.
31:20Daniel Graham lived in a piece of land in a caravan.
31:26There were lots of outbuildings. It was quite a chaotic location.
31:32Are you having a couple of these dogs in the kennel?
31:33Aye, sure. Are they all right? They're friendly?
31:36It's covered in mud, that's all.
31:38Oh, that's all right. Is it Daniel?
31:40Aye.
31:42Oi! Come on! Oi!
31:44Daniel, at this time, OK, I'm going to arrest you on suspicion of criminal damage, OK?
31:49We want an interview regarding the damage, OK?
31:51I've got fuck all on underneath.
31:56Yeah, I'm not going to...
31:57I'm going to let me colleagues stay and watch you put some clothes on.
32:00I'm going nowhere.
32:01Aye.
32:02Put some clothes on.
32:03That's just when we arrest you, we can't leave you on your own.
32:04But I'll step out and I'll let you thingy.
32:06Aye.
32:07I led the team that went to Adam Carruthers.
32:17Adam Carruthers' address was in an old airfield.
32:20I awoke him, knocking on his caravan window.
32:24It was certainly not something that he was expecting at that point in time.
32:29For them to be travelling to custody was a relief.
32:38OK, the time now is 15.55.
32:41It's the 31st of October, 2023.
32:45Daniel, are you responsible for criminal damage,
32:48namely, felon of a tree at Sycamore Gap?
32:51No.
32:52No?
32:53Dan, can you recall your movement on that night?
32:55I'll be honest with you, it's a month ago
32:57and I haven't a fucking clue.
32:58You haven't got a clue?
32:59I don't know.
33:00Would you recall if you had done anything out of the ordinary?
33:03I think if I'd cut that tree down,
33:05I'd be able to turn it on to you and say,
33:06I don't know where I was that day.
33:08Yeah.
33:09I didn't cut that tree down.
33:10So on that day, I didn't do anything exciting.
33:12Right.
33:13Anything exciting last night or the night before.
33:15OK.
33:16A good time I had done three days ago, four days ago.
33:18I couldn't have a fucking clue.
33:19Right.
33:20That's for a month.
33:21I honestly don't know.
33:22Daniel Graham seemed quite calm
33:27and quite ready to answer questions.
33:31Even in his posture when he was being interviewed,
33:34he was very laid back.
33:35He was quite...
33:37almost arrogant.
33:39Yeah.
33:40Do you understand what you've been arrested for?
33:44Yes.
33:45You do.
33:46I don't know.
33:47I see.
33:48So you've been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
33:50Yeah, I do.
33:51And it's in relation to the tree that was cut down in Second World Gap.
33:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:55Do you have any knowledge about who's responsible?
33:58None at all.
33:59Like, I just had a new baby on the 15th of September.
34:01And my partner shared a caesarean, so I was, like, around helping her.
34:14So between this period, the 23rd and the 28th of September,
34:17would you have left Cumbia?
34:19I wouldn't have thought so.
34:26Adam was noncommittal.
34:29His response was quite often, I wouldn't have thought so.
34:32You weren't in that area?
34:33No, I wouldn't have thought so.
34:37It's quite an unusual answer.
34:40Either no you weren't, or I don't think so.
34:43I wouldn't have thought so, like.
34:45Erm...
34:47I wouldn't have thought so.
34:49No.
34:53What about a lad called Dan Graham?
34:56I know Dan.
34:57You know Dan.
34:58How do you know Dan?
35:00It was quite weird how we were going on, to be fair.
35:02Erm...
35:04He asked us to...
35:06Like, we found his dad's Land Rover.
35:08Before my dad died, my dad's Land Rover already was fucked.
35:12So I'd put it into Adam, to get it welded up.
35:14So that's kind of well mine and Adam, and she'd picked up.
35:17Sometimes pretty much on the table, like I say,
35:19he's got it every day.
35:21I'm the only person I'm not wearing, like.
35:23Two good friends?
35:24Does Adam come to yours, do you go to his?
35:27Sometimes it comes to mine, sometimes they go to his.
35:30Does Adam stay all back at your place?
35:32No.
35:33He's like, they'll puff to us or something like that.
35:35No, I'm just asking if, as a friend, he may stay.
35:37No, I'm not.
35:38Do you ever stay at this?
35:40No.
35:41Thanks.
35:47I was overseeing and managing the interviews,
35:50and then also at the same time,
35:52receiving updates from the two scenes.
35:55So, Daniel Graham's property is a piece of land with a large static caravan,
36:04and some outbuildings filled with all manner of agricultural machinery.
36:12The black Range Rover was immediately secured.
36:21The vehicle was transported to Northumbria Police, where we could conduct a forensic analysis to see if we could identify further evidence.
36:42If you've got any reason why a Range Rover would be in that vicinity.
36:51He's all alone.
36:52No.
36:53Would anybody else have access to that?
36:56Yeah?
36:57No.
36:58No.
36:59No.
37:00No.
37:01No.
37:02No.
37:03No.
37:04No.
37:05No.
37:06No.
37:07No.
37:08No.
37:09No.
37:10No.
37:11No.
37:12No.
37:13No.
37:14No.
37:15No.
37:16No.
37:17No.
37:18No.
37:19No.
37:20No.
37:21No.
37:22No.
37:23No.
37:24No.
37:25No.
37:26No.
37:27No.
37:28No.
37:29No.
37:30No.
37:31No.
37:32No.
37:33No.
37:34No.
37:35No.
37:36No.
37:37No.
37:38No.
37:39No.
37:40No.
37:41No.
37:42No.
37:43No.
37:44a blade length for chopping down the sycamore gap tree.
37:50Does Adam work for you?
37:51He does tree work.
37:53Tree work? Yeah.
37:54OK.
37:55Would you say Adam's pretty good at tree work?
37:57Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
38:00Who was it you worked for, Adam?
38:01I worked for a few people, to be fair.
38:03Erm, so I'd just, like, help out doing a mechanic sort of thing.
38:08And have you had any training and, er...
38:10train saws or anything you want to have?
38:12No, none of that, like.
38:14If I'm honest, I'm not really keen on them, to be fair,
38:15cos they are nasty, didn't they?
38:21Adam was trying to push himself away
38:25from any capability and use of a chainsaw,
38:28yet his friend stated that, actually,
38:30he was really quite handy with a saw.
38:33Have you done with all the tree before?
38:35No, not...
38:37Not to my...
38:38Not to my memory, like, I've...
38:40I admit, er...
38:41You're saying you've never filmed one
38:42and you wouldn't know how to do it.
38:44No, I wouldn't.
38:45I wouldn't have to try it that way.
38:47You start to think,
38:49we're on the right tracks here.
38:51At that point in time, Detective Constable Kim Reid had been seconded onto the team,
39:08and I asked Kim to prioritise the devices seized from Daniel Graham and Adam Crullers.
39:16Was that your phone?
39:17Yeah, yeah, that's your one, I...
39:20Adam had what we would refer to as a burner phone.
39:23It was a very small phone with very limited capabilities,
39:26and they've both said,
39:29you'll never find anything on my phone.
39:31What about the password? Do you have a password?
39:33Save.
39:35Normally, people don't provide pins to their phones if they have something to hide,
39:39so when Dan gave his pin code,
39:41I had a bit of a sinking feeling and think,
39:43they've got nothing to hide, they're willing to help you.
39:45Take my mobile phone down over here and fuck all of my mobile phone over that shit like.
39:50Mm-hm.
39:51Are you totally denying this offence?
39:52Totally denying it.
39:53That's taking more gaps for COVID-dude, mate.
39:55Mm-hm.
39:56I did not trip to that fucking dream.
39:57That's quite known by the source of news.
39:59I'm fucking boiling.
40:00That's my livelihood, is it?
40:01That's fucked my livelihood.
40:02Coming in these days, it's fucked my livelihood,
40:04because I don't usually put my fucking name up to press,
40:07and I'm being locked up.
40:08That's my business, fuck,
40:09because probably by the time I get up here,
40:11and I have to get home tonight,
40:12I'm going to be the centre of the fucking Facebook,
40:14because my name's tied to this shit.
40:22When the search had been concluded,
40:25we failed to find anything that could clearly tie Adam
40:29into using chainsaws or being involved in that sort of industry.
40:33There was nothing else significant found on either of the searches.
40:39And also, unfortunately, we failed to locate the wedge.
40:43Have you travelled with Dan Graham and his Range Rover into this area?
40:53Yeah.
40:54I wouldn't have thought so, like...
40:56OK.
40:57I'm concluding the interview with Adam Corrales.
41:00All right, so I'm going to terminate the interview.
41:01I don't know if you have got nothing further to ask
41:02any colleagues who have asked all the questions.
41:04After you've conducted your interviews,
41:06you've got to understand whether you are at a point
41:10where you could potentially go for charge.
41:13We weren't at that point.
41:16So, on the evening of the 31st,
41:22Daniel Graham and Adam Corrales were bailed.
41:24Suspicion of criminal damage.
41:25And have been bailed while enquiries...
41:27There was an awful lot of work to do on both suspects.
41:29This case had obviously been going for about a month
41:42with very little evidence.
41:44And we needed something on their phones.
41:47With one of our digital officers,
41:50I reviewed Dan's phone and we just opened the camera roll.
41:53And then we went to the date of the 27th, 28th of September.
41:57The first one was a black video.
42:00So we started to play the video.
42:05You can kind of see some shadows on it.
42:11And we could just hear sounds of wind.
42:16And then all of a sudden we just heard sounds of a chainsaw.
42:29We couldn't really believe what we were hearing.
42:32And I remember thinking,
42:35I need to ring Callum and I need to tell him now.
42:41I received a phone call from Kim.
42:43She said,
42:44There's a video.
42:47So I rapidly put the phone down
42:48and travelled back to the North East.
42:57The video was very dark and grainy.
43:02It was undoubtedly the sound of a chainsaw.
43:08And then there was the sound of a tree cracking.
43:17And falling to the ground.
43:21You can hear a tree crashing to the floor.
43:23I was astounded.
43:33And I remember thinking, this is it.
43:40Potentially, you've got fantastic evidence.
43:43But that has to be presented evidentially to prove that that is that tree.
43:51Because at the moment I was...
43:52I had a black screen.
43:56I spoke to our digital unit and said, you know,
44:00we need to get this all enhanced as fast as possible.
44:03I continued just to review this phone.
44:09When I looked in the camera roll, I could see a little image.
44:13So I opened that one up next.
44:16I'm not a wood expert, but it does look like a bit of a wedge of a tree that had been cut out next to a chainsaw.
44:28That surely can't actually be the bit of wood that we're looking for.
44:31Are they really going to be that silly to cut it down, carry it, and then take a picture of it?
44:39This photograph linked back to the tip-off that said that they'd retained a section of the tree.
44:47But how do I prove that that wedge came from the sycamore tree?
45:01This is the slab from the sycamore gap.
45:19This surface here is the original cut.
45:22It's a massive piece of history.
45:31It's quite something.
45:36We enlisted the help of a forensic botanist.
45:40And he was able to identify, firstly, the fact that the image was of a piece of sycamore.
45:47But then he started looking at the characteristics of the wedge.
45:50Photographs were taken of the slab.
45:55And he was able to overlay the picture of the saw and the wedge in the back of the car.
46:07This T-shape lined up perfectly with the T-shape that we see on the image of the wedge in the back of the Range Rover.
46:20It's like putting the jigsaw piece in and just takes him to place.
46:27The scar, affectionately nicknamed the Harry Potter scar, is likely to have been damaged to the tree as it was growing.
46:35It is unique as a fingerprint.
46:37I would say it's some significant evidence.
46:47We had to get them re-arrested.
46:52They've got some tough questions to answer now.
46:54We need to know what's been going on.
46:55And the mystery continues tomorrow from 9 or see the whole story now from Root to Branch on Channel 4 Streaming.
47:06Next Wednesday at 9, a narcissism faith and a shocking abuse of trust.
47:11The biggest scandal in the history of the church.
47:14See no evil.
47:15Back to this evening and we've a festive goggle box coming up next.
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