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Northumberland Correspondent Tom Barton has been gauging reaction to the release from prison of Adam Carruthers who felled the famous Sycamore Gap tree

The man who felled the Sycamore Gap tree has been released from prison after serving just 10 months of a four year and three month sentence, ITV News Tyne Tees can exclusively reveal.

Adam Carruthers, 33, was jailed in May 2025 after being convicted alongside his former friend Daniel Graham, 40, of felling the much-loved Northumberland tree and damage to Hadrian’s Wall in September 2023.

However, ITV News Tyne Tees understands that Carruthers, who gave his address in court as Wigton, Cumbria, was released in March under curfew and is required to wear an electronic tag.

When we visited Cumbria Turf in Kirkbride, the business identified during his trial as Carruthers’ employer, we found him in a workshop surrounded by old vehicles.

Aked if he was happy to be out of jail, he told us he was. Asked whether he was back at work, he nodded.

Set in Northumberland National Park, the tree in Sycamore Gap was hailed as one of the most photographed trees in the country. Credit: PA

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.

The decision to release Carruthers was, ITV News understands, taken by the governor at the prison where he was serving his sentence after a risk assessment was carried out.

He 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.

Daniel Graham was convicted alongside Adam Carruthers and is still serving his sentence behind bars. Credit: PA

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 around 15 March this year.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told ITV News: “Anyone released into Home Detention Curfew faces strict licence conditions and must be tagged. Those who break the rules can be returned to prison.”

Some of the walkers at Sycamore Gap on Wednesday (15 April) were not impressed with Carruthers’ release.

One woman said it was “unbelievable” and “he shouldn’t be at liberty”, adding: “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.”

Helen Lloyd, from Dartmoor, had a different view. She said: “If he’s learned and I think a lot of other people have learned because of the publicity so I think it’s alright – I think he’s probably had his due.”

A video of the tree’s felling was discovered on Daniel Graham’s mobile phone. Credit: CPS

After his conviction, Carruthers admitted to probation officers that he had wielded the chainsaw and felled the tree while his friend Daniel Graham filmed him doing so.

During the trial at Newcastle Crown Court in April 2025, 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, which captured the moment the tree was chopped down in the pitch black, 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.

The prosecution also claimed the men took a wedge from the tree as a trophy. It, and the chainsaw believed to have been used to cut the tree down, were never found.

Sentencing the pair in July last year, Judge Lambert dismissed said she believed they were “both equally culpable” for felling the tree.

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