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.
There is no logic, only destruction.
I’m really not a big fan of the teenage phase some go through where they think it’s fun to be edgy and crap on other people’s hobbies and interests.
It can be frustrating to see, but they have a tonne going on biologically. I’ve had a bunch of friends, nieces & nephews that have all been horrible when teenagers, then grow up to be fantastic, kind people.
That’s because they learned where being an asshole gets them.
Some don’t. And, the people around them suffer. If this kid gets a slap on the hand, it sends a message: “you can do whatever you want with no consequences.”
This kid will not be getting a mere slap, no matter what police do. This kid will be shunned almost completely from the local community.
As he should.
He can move and never hear about it again.
His idiocy made national news. Where’s he going to go to avoid it? Gibraltar?
The kid is stuck on that island where everyone knows his name for the wrong reasons. It’s not like the rest of Europe where freedom of travel is a thing. Not to mention a Brit isn’t going to last long in a state European school.
you consider having to move as “no consequences”?
Sadly, some people never learn. I know a 53 year old man who never made it past 15, emotionally. He thinks cruelty is funny, and constantly tries to provoke everyone around him for attention. It’s extremely annoying.
i was that teenager and in hindsight i was an asshole but i think it helped me grow out of being an asshole faster because i became so self aware of my insecure and defensive tendencies
RULE MANY DONT UNDERSTAND, one thing being bad/good does not abstain another thing from being bad/good
everything is made for someone and if you dont enjoy it someone else does.
except linux users can suck a dick
Teenage angst and contrarianism is it’s own form of (backwards) logic.
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Pre Planned as well.
With a chainsaw. Definitely pre-meditated.
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Locals are sick of all the tourist traffic in that area. There is a chance he will be a local hero.
People disliking having tourists around does not mean they’re happy to burn their place down to prevent tourism.
Go tell that to the locals.
I dislike you 16-year old boy, Sycamore Gap Feller.
I dislike you as I dislike Brock Turner, Convicted Rapist.
What a bizarre and completely unnecessary comparison to make…
(to be clear - cutting down a tree, however pointless and destructive, is in absolutely no way shape or form comparable to raping women)You can still dislike someone for doing something heinous, even though the crime isn’t comparable.
Wanton destruction of a living being of historical and cultural significance isn’t any more or less acceptable than violating someone’s agency and personhood, marring them for life.
Hey, so, lots of rape survivors have asked people to stop framing rape as something that mars a person for life, because it’s basically a rephrasing of the outdated idea of a “ruined woman”. You can’t ruin a person. A lot of people really struggle with the idea that they’re dirty forever, and hearing that said by allies constantly doesn’t help their recovery. You can still recognize the harm that rape does without reinforcing outdated concepts of purity, where before they were pure and unmarked and after they’re “marred for life” with no recovery.
You’re speaking to one. I thank you not to put words in my mouth.
Wow, I’ve been sexually assaulted too. Guess we’re at a detente.
More. The answer is that killing a tree is more acceptable than rape. What’s wrong with you?
Well, if we are going to compare… which would be worse: raping a tree or killing a 300 y/o old woman?
Funniest thing I’ve read today. Well done.
The splinters would be punishment enough. And that lady’s probably a vampire.
They didn’t say that.
They quite literally did.
There must be a miscommunication somewhere. It looked like you were saying one wasn’t more acceptable than the other, but I’ll take you at your word that you didn’t mean that. Because that would be an insane thing to say, yet I’m getting downvoted for pointing it out.
Both crimes involve permanent harm that cannot be repaired.
Just because you can’t connect the two crimes in your head, doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Get out of your own head.
Sure, but he’s not wrong. It’s still bizarre and unnecessary. There’s no need to generalize every freaking situation. It eventually waters down language IMO.
But in one case the victim is a person with feelings and in the other case it’s a tree. I find it quite concerning that people seem to struggle to see the difference.
I find it concerning that you can’t see the similarities between a crime that involves a person with feelings, and a crime that involves an entire community with feelings.
It shows your complete lack of knowledge of biology to assert that trees don’t have “feelings”. They may not experience them as we do, but there is way more research to be done before that can be definitively stated. With as much as we’ve learned about fungi associated with tree roots that help them communicate, as well as chemicals they release when damaged to warn other trees, I think it is safe to say that trees and other plants do indeed experience distress.
Rape is a crime in which one person acts heinously out of a desire for control over another person/creature, causing irreparable harm. There are various kinds of rape as well. Do you know, that in history, when one city was invaded by an army, that would be referred to as a rape of that city?
So yes, I think there is plenty of logic to hate both of those youths equally. Both committed atrocities against innocent parties that have resulted in extreme harm.
You mean Convicted Rapist Brock Turner, now going by the name of Convicted Rapist Allen Turner, who was sentenced to six months but only served three for what his father called (and I quote) “twenty minutes of action”? That Convicted Rapist Brock Allen Turner?
[I awaken as a shadow of my former self, a figment of the late-night scroller you met so long ago. I return to you now, humbled and broken by time and nature, and in my defeat I must profess that In my state I find myself unfit to take up the weight of the banner which I swore to bear.]
Yes, the very same Brock Allen Turner, convicted rapist of an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, who only served three months.
Punish the kid by forcing him to plant 300 new sycamore saplings but using a toothpick instead of a shovel.
Punish him by making him watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves 300 times.
No need to be so savage… he’s just a kid!
Cut out his heart with a spoon!
In a row?
“IT’LL HURT MORE!”
Even this boy can find the weaknesses in a suit of armor -_-
Just let him pay for the purchase and transplanting of a similar quality tree of 300 years.
We moved a 260 year old oak 50 yards to save it when building a new City Halland police station.
It cost $250,000.
So about the same as US student loans? Sounds like a good amount of debt to put him in.
putting people in serious, permanent financial financial trouble with no real chance of escaping is famously effective at treating criminality
Just throw him into the ocean 500 miles offshore.
So this crime deserves the death penalty? Interesting take
You get to a point where maybe it just makes more sense? 8 billion people on this planet. 8 fucking billion. At that scale, truly what is the value of a human life? I’m neither for nor against a death penalty, but I do question at what point do we stop tolerating those who are selfish, entitled, destructive, and violent? When do we stop giving out slaps on the wrist?
We’ve seen similar destructive actions in the past. We all pay the price for one person’s actions.
I do like the idea mentioned above though that this kid should be sentenced to seeding and tending to the growth of a forest of trees.
Maybe also have him pay for the commission of a artistic piece to stand in place of the tree.
You’re too philosophical about this. He fell a tree. Shitty asshole? Yes. Deserving of death? No.
With that logic we could behead people for jaywalking because “hey, there’s 8 billion of us, what’s one less gonna do?”
Is there another tree within 50 yards? If it has to be transported any kind of distance it will be millions.
He’s just a pissed off, angsty, angry teenager. Make him plant 300 trees as community service in the presence of arborists and maybe he’ll learn something good for the rest of his life. Jail won’t help this tree, our world, or him.
Also today some people got arrested for putting a hole large enough to drive a truck through in the Great Wall of China. Today is bad day for ancient walls.
they got arrested days ago
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Just look at that tree:
That even looks too good to be real. Probably one of the best places for such a tree to grow.How do you just decide, “Yep, let’s cut it down!” here? Did he take drugs? Like, I mean, all of them.
He’s jeffried.
The punishment should be that he becomes Johnny Appleseed and has to spend the rest of his life crossing the country planting trees
Education. Please educate your kids.
This isn’t education, this is mental illness
Pathologizing each mistake or problem won’t resolve them. You’re searching for excuse, or pathologizing will be used as excuse. We will end with the same situations again and again. Education effectively fights these behaviors without excusing. But, I agree on one pathologization. The society is sick of a lack of education. This is widely due to the socio-economic situation of many of us due to some economic dogma and ideology.
16-year-old boy […] struggling to see the logic
What logic?
had gone through thousands of changes of seasons […] 300 years old
300 years is only 1200 seasons.
“Has gone through thousand of change of seasons” just doesn’t have the same ring to it
‘More than a thousand’ covers it perfectly
1200 is thousands. 1.2 thousands, to be specific.
Or to be more specific, 0.0012 millions… /s
Insane question, could the tree be saved by splicing it back into the trunk? Like you can do with small trees?
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If they had found it right after it had been felled, they might have had a slight chance if they already had a crane nearby and ready and a firehouse.
Trees are basically a huge ring of tubes to carry water/sap/ tree blood, a thin layer of living wood between the bark and the dead wood inside from earlier growth. The tree relies on those tubes always being full of water because it doesn’t have any way to push the sap around actively. The water evaporates from the leaves, buds, any part of the tree not covered by bark, and this pulls water from the bottom of the tree up to replace it. (Technically the water moves up due to capillary action of the close molecular interactions of the H2O and the tiny size of the tubes so it doesn’t need a lot of “pull”)
But if these tubes get cut, an air bubble gets in and that flow is interrupted. It’s difficult or impossible for a plant to recover flow in that tube. If the cut is kept wet, it can keep air from blocking the tube, which is wide you are advised to trim flower stems under running water and never let them dry out if you are keeping flowers in a vase.
If a tree loses most of all of these tubes to air bubbles, it can’t really recover. This is why “ringing” a tree kills it and also why there is a strict limit on the number of times you can tap a Maple Tree for syrup.
Not OP, but thanks for taking the time to thoroughly answer a question I had as well.
Awesome answer, thanks!
Maybe replacing it from a cutting would be easier?
Maybe easier, but much more time consuming (300 years give or take)
I am guessing that the most cost-effective option is just replacing the tree, which is probably what they will most likely do. But I hope they take another tack and find a way to restore it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s an easy proposition - or perhaps even possible - to do with a fuck-off huge 300-year-old tree.
No. Not even remotely possible for a tree that age and size. Even as an experiment with planning ahead, it would fail.
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I’m fine with a lenient punishment. If it turns out he did it to get attention, I’m happy to grant him that wish by an exceptionally harsh punishment, so much so that more little shits wanting to make society worse and being rewarded for it, will see that the risk is too high. Don’t go into female only carriages in Japan, don’t cut down trees, don’t do dumb stunts against homeless people, etc.
Half the time it’s paid actors, but when it’s not, throw the book at them, or force extended community service to remedy the harm they do. Financially penalise any monetary gain made from such stunts. Etc.
So the various theories I’ve read are:
- kid is retarded.
- kid is acting on behalf of family.
- kid is blamed for family’s act.
- kid was fired from local ranger service and wanted revenge.
- all of above.
Kid wanted to be tiktok famous.
Like he said, kid is retarded.
Hey now, that’s offensive to retarded people. They’re smarter than wanting to be TikTok famous.
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
