Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers previously testified at trial that they had nothing to do with the vandalism, but a prosecutor said that the two convicts now blame booze for the act as they admitted before sentencing that they had been on what he termed a “moronic mission” to topple the tree.

Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham are being sentenced later for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. Who are they? And, given they have never admitted causing the destruction that shocked the world, what might have possessed them to do it?

Two men have been sentenced to four years and three months each in prison for felling a landmark sycamore tree in northern England.