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.

LONDON — With one man holding a phone to record the tree’s notorious fall and the other working a chainsaw, a pair of vandals forever altered the landscape of a beloved section of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. In less than three minutes, the beloved Sycamore Gap tree that had stood nearly 150 years crashed to the ground.