But no one was prosecuted, a tree is a tree.

Modern society indeed. Something can matter to an awful lot of people but if it doesn't matter to me personally then it doesn't matter at all

But you never said that....you said it didn't get much publicity....but it did.

not a tree but locally there as been some so called artwork vandalised up penistone hill in haworth thats been placed there for the bradford city of culture. the vast majority of the locals hate it and the idea of it as its been pushed on us with no consultation. now they have vast security around the place but never would have or has haved for vandalism to local residents property and allotments that happens.

Ah, the butterfly’s….they look like debris from an exploded cast iron boiler explosion….or illegal fly tipping of scrap..
Mind you there’s always someone who’ll think it’s wonderful.

funny you mention fly tipping as someone i met thought it was just that. one thing about northerners is you cant fool em by arty farty bullshit and can be wondering what the local councillors are getting out of it especially with them all coming out with the same thing and not a single dissenter.

The factory-fitted bullshit detector that I have as a Northerner is the finest gift a man could ever desire.

It's like the front of a snow plough as it rapidly clears the shite out of the way on the highway to happiness and contentment.

Without it, I'd be a gibbering wreck of a man...

or someone born within the sound of the westminster parliament. feel this is why a lot of southerners do not like us and accuse us of having a sack of king edwards on our shoulders. we see it when it happens but it takes them months to smell their flat whites.

Aye, that's certainly been my experience over the years.

The "School of Hard Knocks" and the "University of Life" may well have became clichés - but like all folk-wisdom, that's only possible because truth was contained within them in the first place.

Stereotypes are exactly the same. As exaggerated as many of them are, they could not exist if there were no truth in them at all.

every stereotype and a generalisation has some truth about it as there would be other different ones if they were incorrect. evan andy capp would not feel right if he was from a cotswold villiage with his statue being in bourton on the water.

When I worked in London in the late 1980s, I was regularly asked who was looking after my pigeons and whippets while I was away. I laughed at this, and after a while I developed a few comebacks that made them a bit more wary.

The only one I got a bit sick of was what football team did I support. They always scratched their heads and said " 'Artlepool..? Never 'eard of 'em." - before adding "Oh, you mean 'Artlepool nil..!!!"

Bddumm tssshhhhh..!!!

At least the Cockney wankers pronounced it correctly...

Deleted I don’t want to upset Snowy, he got in first damn it !

Not a problem Jamie, might as well used the original posting…I’d forgotten all about it.
Might as well post what you deleted.

It was the same as you Snowy, the length of their sentences.

What sentences did they get??

Four years and 3 months each.

A statue can be repaired or replaced with an identical one. A tree takes many years to reach matuirity so the damage is to all intents and purposes irrepairable. It is a crime against everyone regardless of colour, creed or politics. Throw away the key.

I suspect if it was located somewhere else or hadn’t featured in a film no one would have given a toss.
Did they ever give a reason…?

I absolutely get where you are coming from Ozzy and fully appreciate that this incident caused distress to many people. However, at the end of the day it's still a tree. It will be interesting therefore to see what kind of sentence Newcastle Crown Court dishes out to similar local lowlife who are found guilty of acts of vandalism that result in serious mental or physical injury (or worse) to human victims over the forthcoming months.

I just think this is much more serious than some random yob attacking a bus shelter. The Sycamore gap tree is a well know icon especially in the North of the country. The perpetrators knew this and attacked it, knowing it would have the maximum impact. Its like a "Feck You" to anyone who has any kind respect or love for the environment. Its more an act of pure malice than it is an act of vandalism.

I'd have given them 10 years each just for being absolute kunts and still denying it.
And in Bunker History I agree with Ozzie 100%.

They denied it but then one blamed the other but still denied it...so no reason. But just to be destructive kunts.
Tut tut tut.

And a dog or cat or still a dog or cat at the end of the day.
You denying it looked beautiful in its location??
I admit I'd never heard of it before this but seeing pics since this crime is wish I had known and visited. Just think of the number of people walking along Hadrian's Wall who'd never heard of it before....bet 99.9% of people took a photo.

Passed it a month before it happened as we were stopping up that way for a week at West Woodburn (Otterburn) and passed it every day travelling to the Gilsland area and knew it as nothing special till it was on the news.
A pity other vandalised trees don’t get this protection, just the celebrity trees, because if it had been over the opposite side of the very same road we’d have heard nothing about it.

I just can't get my head around the fact that you get over 4 years for cutting down a tree but the scroats who commit burglary and carnage in people's homes get community service if the police can be arsed to find them and prosecute.
Weird justice?

Because you aren't engaging brain. Imagine it was just a pike of stones with some names on it that was damaged or a cenotaph in other words. Its fine for things to not be important to you personally but that doesn't mean they are not important full stop.

And the treasured belongings of the victims of a burglary don't mean anything, or the trauma of returning home to find the place is being trashed doesn't matter as much?
We all have different values, and if you go back in the thread I did actually compare the damage to Churchill's statue.
As for not engaging brain, just f*ck off with the personal stuff and try sticking to the topic and reasonable discussion or debate.

It’s a tree that was in a film, otherwise they’d have got a non custodial sentence…hardly comparable with a cenotaph.
I’d have given five years for there faces.

it is if you compare cutting down that tree to many others with tree preservation orders on them when little or nothing is ever done. its a regular occurance around my way as if some have something against trees. all trees matter including the ones that get no publicity but are equally important to others.

Or Huw Edwards guilty of creating and possessing child pornography - 6 months suspended sentence.

Stop Oil preventing thousands going about their daily business including preventing ambulance crews from carrying out potentially life saving duties - nothing.

Chop down an old tree - 4 years and 3 months (in excess of the maximum sentencing guidelines). Yes it was a famous, to some, tree but FFS is it more important than people? Ironically, many had not even heard of the Sycamore Gap Tree until it was felled, now it's famous all over the world.

agree about how famous a tree has got since its felling. however you cannot compare sentances handed out for different crimes. a lot depends on how serious you feel yourself about a crime committed. its just the situation of bigger sentances handed out because the crime has become newsworthy and the importance of one tree over another. i,d guess now if a fan slapped raj at the vic his sentance would be more severe as doing the same to some random fan there.

Totally agree. The inconsistencies within the legal system are baffling - but what about the idiot judges who let folk off for spurious reasons and let dangerous folk onto the streets - like these two violent lunatics - and their dogs - how long before a human gets seriously injured by these wastes of space - bring back the birch?

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/no ... ts-wrapper

Those 2 scumbags should have been whipped and then given 10 years!!! Only a suspended sentence?!?!

In all cases the punishment should fit the crime. Our system is so broken that's rarely the case.
I'd imagine they'll appeal the sentence and I'd be surprised if it's not reduced.

Said on the news they also damaged Hadrian's Wall in the felling. Given that's a listed/ancient structure they probably got more for that damage than for the tree.

I agree with the sentences, these two literally asked for it, they are top class idiots.

However, that to one side, Huw Davis (or whatever he’s called) got no jail time for his awful behaviour.

And yet the 100% woke Beeb sack a MasterChef presenter over an alleged racist comment that he supposedly made 7 years back. As someone mentioned earlier the UK is seriously broken and it would be no surprise if a Civil War of some kind broke out within the next 5 years.

I fully agree that there is a gigantic disconnect between normal people and the liberal establishment who run this country regardless of who the government happen to be. They seem to think if they try to make us think the way they do, society will be transformed into a liberal utopia. Not going to happen, and the damage they are doing as they push on with their plan is now becoming to clear to even the most avid Guardian reader. This latest Afghan scandal typifies the attitude of those who are sure they know better than us.

What does one call a brownie on Masterchef these days?