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jacquesm

'we have reason to believe it was deliberately felled'

One look at the base of that trunk and I think you can upgrade that to 'we know it was deliberately felled'.

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The cut is too straight and flat to be an amateur with a chainsaw.

A cheapo chainsaw wouldn't be long enough to do this without needing to go in from both sides.

There is also a paint line along the cut. Who paints along the line they're about to cut if they're just cutting down a tree?

Yes, all agreed. I've lived on a large lot in Canada where every year some trees were logged to give the rest breathing room. This wasn't done by someone who used a chainsaw for the first time, neither was it done with a small saw, that's a very clean cut. To add insult to injury they aimed the drop straight at the wall.

> The cut is too straight and flat to be an amateur with a chainsaw.

Looks like it was a 16 year old kid:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/boy-16-arres...

Well, just that he’s been arrested in connection - not that he did it. He could have there with the people, he may have known who did it etc.

A boy has been arrested now:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/boy-16-arres...

A minor? groomed to do the job?, scapegoat for sacrifice? How convenient

Question 2: Should a 16 year old be able to get a chainsaw.

> Question 2: Should a 16 year old be able to get a chainsaw.

No. In the UK, it should be illegal for 16 year olds to get their hands on anything more than a dull crayon.

Why would a 16 year old be in a situation to need a chainsaw but not have anyone older to purchase it for them?

Why would a legal system set out a bunch of laws categorizing age limits for various objects? And laws penalizing people who don't secure their chainsaws in gun cabinets, for that matter.

Will they be allowed hand saws? Hammers? Chefs knives? Dremels?

Besides, 16 is old enough to drive and hold a job in lots of places.

From a shop? From a parent? Or from an employer?

When it comes to employers, City and Guilds NPTC and Lantra chainsaw courses are only offered to people at the Minimum School Leaving Age and above. Since employers are not permitted under HSE regulations to let untrained people operate chainsaws, and since the training is not instant, this effectively bars 16-year-olds from getting chainsaws from their employers.

I will go ahead and assume that in the middle of nowhere and with no cameras in sight, the authorities may have used any available data (i.e. cell tower antennas information, social media tracking your phone's location 24/7, and so on).

Chainsaws like that cannot be handled by a random 16 boy, unless he is the son of Hulk or Thor. Perhaps the kid texted to a friend "we cut the treeeeee" or similar.. I would be VERY surprised to finally see proven that a 16yo did this.

Side note: I have used a chainsaw numerous times in my late teens cutting down branches for a fireplace. I could never manage to cut the tree trunk pieces, even on a chopped down tree. Branches (20cm diameter or less) were easy peasy. But a 60? 70cm diameter? Nah...

You were some kinda scrawny 16 year old kid.

Most of the problem is dealing with the physics of keeping the chainsaw from binding which requires experience (or dumb luck) more than strength.

Exactly, an average 12-14yo of modest strength could maneuver the chainsaw. The hard part about that work is doing it safely when unexpected things happen.

I have seen chainsaws that are huge, used in industrial logging. This section of comments is daft -- look at the size of the tree .. not "50 cm" trunk at all .. much larger. Secondly a boy of 16 can be anything between a helpless sheep to an olympian. Hard labor is not for all of them.

Yes, and the cut is very neat. Well, the cuts, actually, as we can see on the pictures that cuts were made on each side in order for the tree to fall in a certain way.

The person who did that knew what they were doing and knew how to handle a large chainsaw to fell large trees.

I'll counter that - I'm of fairly slight build, and I have cut down multiple trees in my garden with my chainsaw, easily 50cm diameter. It's not that much of a stretch to imagine cutting down something a little bigger. Chainsaws aren't that heavy.

That's an exceptionally clean tree-felling, though the position of the hinge indicates it was meant to fall toward the wall.

The paint looks like an indication on how big to make the hinge, which actually suggests someone who "knows what they're supposed to be doing" but not "used to doing it all the time".

So potentially, "someone who just watched a youtube video on how to fell a tree"?

That's what I would suspect. Someone who did enough research but hadn't really done it before.

But! It also looks pretty clean for a "first try" so maybe the paint is something else.

I have felled a couple of old apple trees in my garden with a chainsaw after watching a "few Youtube videos".

The trunks were maybe 30 to 40cm in diameter so obviously much smaller trees than that sycamore (well apple trees for a start and much younger) and I can tell you that this is one of those things that looks easy when you watch but not so much when you do it. Handling a chainsaw to be able to make clean, straight cut through takes practice and you need a good chainsaw as well.

So IMHO there is no chance in hell that the sycamore was felled by an amateur.

I believe that one has to be at least 16 to become a trainee so maybe that 16 year old has received previous training and/or his family works in the field. Or he didn't do it himself.

You know sometimes you just fall while carrying a motor saw with the throttle fully open. Happens to the best of us.

accidental shotgun blasts too -- sorry about that!

Snark aside:

They need to make sure that someone wasn't trying to take down a different tree and made a mistake.

Highly unlikely, that can happen in a dense forest with unmarked trees but this is controlled land and there is only the one tree there in that particular setting.

Also: then the tree would have been stripped and removed. Someone just cut it down and ran off.

Unless this particular tree has an identifier of SYT-786B, and tree SYT-7868 was slated for felling, in which case this could have been an error, although you'd expect someone to have double-checked given the prominence of this specific tree.

If you’re from a 70 mile radius of that tree, you know its significance. Nobody would drive up and say “wow ok yeah gonna cut down this tree I don’t know what it is”.

“Hi Boss, I got my work list for today and it says to chop down the sycamore gap tree, are you sure this is right?”

“Hmm, odd, I would have thought there’d have been a separate heads-up on that. Let me check… yep, that’s what it says in the system, guess I must have missed the memo. We’re already behind on the monthly target, see if you can squeeze in three more by the end of the day.”

Low probability does not mean zero probability, and the vast majority of an investigator's job is dealing with low probability events. Journalists want them to make definitive statements about things that occurred just hours earlier, and their experience says that don't yet know enough to make such a definitive statement. Give 'em a break :)

Given how widely known this tree at Sycamore Gap was, you’d have to be the stupidest person alive to accidentally cut it down. There are literally no other trees nearby.

Yes. Zero probability. Just look at this pictures from the different sides of the gap:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hadrianswall-60-Syca...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Looking_Southwest_to...

There is zero chance this was a mistake, it’s the only tree in the area and to say it’s iconic in the North East is an understatement - this was a deliberate act, the only thing in doubt is their state of mind.

From a legal perspective, this isn’t an issue. It’ll be a brave barrister that tries to argue a lack of intent when someone travels to the arse end of nowhere with a chainsaw and cuts a well-known tree down. I’d honestly expect the judge to throw the hammer at anyone who even tried.

That’s the expected British understatement, it’s just how the police communicates there.

I think it's the correct terminology here. The police believe and suspect, the court try and prove. Arrests are always made 'on suspicion of'.

This is the correct language from the perspective of how things ought to be done, and journalists in the USA would do well to follow this example.

Yes, if only because that'd be libel outherwise unless the person is ultimately convicted.

In addition, an arrest does not guarantee that the person will even be charged.

No the prosecution try to prove.

The the judge, judges.

Well that's how it's 'supposed' to work.

> Then the judge, judges.

Unless it's a criminal offense and the defendant invoked his right to being judged by a jury.

Even then, the judge is still doing judging.

The jury determine if the defendant is guilty of charges or not, based on the evidence given during the trial. The judge still judges the admissibility of evidence, the conduct of the prosecution and defence, etc., and also determines the punishment or sentence, based on sentencing guidelines, if the jury find the defendant guilty of any charges.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/about-cps/how-a-criminal-case-works

Exactly. Personally I find that really good: factual and rational without being unnecessarily accusatory.

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