Ammon News - Two British men were sentenced to more than four years in prison on Tuesday for cutting down one of the most iconic trees in England, the Sycamore Gap Tree. The pair were found guilty in May of what a judge called a "deliberate and mindless" act of felling the tree as an apparent joke.

Justice Christina Lambert sentenced both Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers to four years and three months in prison during a hearing at the Newcastle Crown Court on Tuesday.

The tree stood for nearly 200 years in a picturesque valley in northern England, right next to the remnants of Hadrian's Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The stone wall was constructed by Britain's Roman occupiers almost 2,000 years ago as a defensive structure, and the portion of the wall where the tree stood featured in a scene of the 1991 Hollywood blockbuster "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," with Kevin Costner, bringing the bucolic spot and the grand tree some degree of international fame.

A jury at the same court had convicted the former friends on two counts each of criminal damage for their 2023 nighttime felling of the tree, for damaging both the sycamore maple tree and the Roman wall. They had faced a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in jail. CBS