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.

  • @atomicorange
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    -51 year ago

    More. The answer is that killing a tree is more acceptable than rape. What’s wrong with you?

    • @[email protected]
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      271 year ago

      Well, if we are going to compare… which would be worse: raping a tree or killing a 300 y/o old woman?

      • @atomicorange
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        51 year ago

        The splinters would be punishment enough. And that lady’s probably a vampire.

    • Dojan
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      11 year ago

      They didn’t say that.

      • @atomicorange
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        61 year ago

        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.