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.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Make him replant sycamore trees, then work for the forest druids/nearest national park during summer vacations. His spirit sounds troubled.

    • @Smoogs
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      101 year ago

      Before allowing him into national forests to work in them to pay off a debt I’d probably make sure he has no matches on him first

    • Subverb
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      -431 year ago

      Let’s make Jeffrey Dahmer work in the kitchen of a boys home in the Philippines. He sounds troubled.

      • @[email protected]
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        231 year ago

        Absolutely agree. Those trees will just end up getting molested and we should avoid it if possible.

        • @Smoogs
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          -171 year ago

          ….so arson was never considered here ? Your brain went first to sex……about trees. Mmmk.