The two men convicted of chopping down the Sycamore Gap tree were suspects in an investigation into alleged homophobic assaults that took place around the same time they committed their infamous crime.
NOW will you be outraged, progressive press?
Nine days earlier, a man reported being doused in icing sugar and subjected to verbal abuse by two people at a layby in Cumbria often frequented by men seeking sexual encounters. The CPS dropped the case more than a year later, but emails seen by the BBC confirm police prepared a file on Graham and Carruthers for prosecutors.
But…?
The victim said he had reported the incident to police the same night, giving officers a description of the vehicle and his recollection of the registration number. He was, however, unable to identify any individual involved. The informant said he wished police had used his initial evidence to check CCTV at the time.
It doesn’t appear as though the police didn’t try their best, to be fair:
Cumbria Police said checks had been carried out using the registration number provided by the victim, but these showed the vehicle linked to that number plate – which differed from that of Graham's car by one letter – had not been in Cumbria.
Two men had been arrested in connection with the incidents and video evidence had been found on a phone belonging to one of them. The victim was asked to watch "10 or 12" videos showing various men suffering homophobic abuse and, in some cases, having things thrown into their vehicles.After helping police identify some of the other men in the videos, and confirming his own appearance in some of them, he gave a formal statement in August 2024 but told police he could not definitively identify the driver.
What were they supposed to do?
In December 2024 a case was presented to the Crown Prosecution Service relating to three victims across six offences. But the CPS decided against bringing charges due to insufficient evidence, difficulties identifying the perpetrators and too much time having elapsed since the incidents.
So why dredge it up now?
