A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage in connection with the felling of the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in the north of England.

Officers arrested the teenager amid an outpouring of sadness over the destruction of the landmark, which has been a feature of the site at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland for hundreds of years. The boy is in custody and assisting officers with their inquiries, Northumbria police said on Thursday.

Locals and national park authorities said they were “struggling to see the logic” in the destruction of a sycamore which had long become “part of this area’s DNA” and had gone through thousands of changes of seasons.

The tree, believed to have been about 300 years old, was made famous when it appeared in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    1 year ago

    Just let him pay for the purchase and transplanting of a similar quality tree of 300 years.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      1 year ago

      We moved a 260 year old oak 50 yards to save it when building a new City Halland police station.

      It cost $250,000.

      • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        So about the same as US student loans? Sounds like a good amount of debt to put him in.

        • Lols [they/them]@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          19
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          putting people in serious, permanent financial financial trouble with no real chance of escaping is famously effective at treating criminality

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Is there another tree within 50 yards? If it has to be transported any kind of distance it will be millions.