Trees seem to matter more than women in the criminal justice system, says Home Office minister Jess Phillips.
She criticised how some sex offenders avoid prison when the two men who chopped down the Sycamore Gap tree were jailed for four years and three months.
“I’ve spent my life saying that there are fundamental problems where policies around women’s safety matters less than bins...in this case it feels like trees and I can understand why people make that comparison,” said Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls minister Ms Phillips.
“It will take years to undermine what is completely acceptable in lots of institutions across our country that women should just suffer in silence and the attention on them is always less...boats matter more than women, cars matter more than women..that it is often how it feels.”
She stressed how she was seeking to push through changes in Government on violence against women and girls to make sure that in every department “women’s rights and the safety of children is everybody’s priorities”.
She described as “shocking” one case where a man who had sexual activity with a vulnerable girl, aged 15, in care, was given a suspended prison sentence.
“That seems completely and utterly wrong,” she said.
She spoke out after the jailing of Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree, in an act which sparked condemnation across the country.
They drove from their home in Cumbria to illegally fell the tree at Sycarmore Gap in the early hours of 28 September 2023.
They were convicted of criminal damage to the much-loved tree, which had stood for more than 100 years in a fold in the landscape.
They were also convicted of criminal damage to Hadrian’s Wall, caused when the sycamore fell on the ancient monument.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told jurors the pair had engaged in a “moronic mission” to cut down the landmark, travelling for more than 40 minutes from their homes in Cumbria, then carrying their equipment across pitch black moorland during a storm back in September 2023.
One of them filmed the act, although precisely who did what, and why, has never been explained, with the prosecution case claiming that each encouraged the other.
They took a wedge from the tree as a trophy that has never been recovered and revelled in the media coverage, as news of the vandalism caused national and international headlines.
The tree was a symbol of Northumberland, was the site of countless family visits and featured in the Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Its destruction, filmed on a mobile phone, took less than three minutes.
The two were friends but they fell out over the incident after being caught.
