The tree stood for nearly 150 years before the two men carried out what a prosecutor called a “moronic mission” and cut it down in the middle of the night.

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

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were sentenced to more than 4 years in prison for cutting down the iconic Sycamore Gap Tree in a "deliberate and mindless" act.