A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage in connection with the felling of the 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in the north of England.
Officers arrested the teenager amid an outpouring of sadness over the destruction of the landmark, which has been a feature of the site at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland for hundreds of years. The boy is in custody and assisting officers with their inquiries, Northumbria police said on Thursday.
Locals and national park authorities said they were “struggling to see the logic” in the destruction of a sycamore which had long become “part of this area’s DNA” and had gone through thousands of changes of seasons.
The tree, believed to have been about 300 years old, was made famous when it appeared in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner.
What a bizarre and completely unnecessary comparison to make…
(to be clear - cutting down a tree, however pointless and destructive, is in absolutely no way shape or form comparable to raping women)
You can still dislike someone for doing something heinous, even though the crime isn’t comparable.
Wanton destruction of a living being of historical and cultural significance isn’t any more or less acceptable than violating someone’s agency and personhood, marring them for life.
Hey, so, lots of rape survivors have asked people to stop framing rape as something that mars a person for life, because it’s basically a rephrasing of the outdated idea of a “ruined woman”. You can’t ruin a person. A lot of people really struggle with the idea that they’re dirty forever, and hearing that said by allies constantly doesn’t help their recovery. You can still recognize the harm that rape does without reinforcing outdated concepts of purity, where before they were pure and unmarked and after they’re “marred for life” with no recovery.
You’re speaking to one. I thank you not to put words in my mouth.
Wow, I’ve been sexually assaulted too. Guess we’re at a detente.
More. The answer is that killing a tree is more acceptable than rape. What’s wrong with you?
Well, if we are going to compare… which would be worse: raping a tree or killing a 300 y/o old woman?
Funniest thing I’ve read today. Well done.
The splinters would be punishment enough. And that lady’s probably a vampire.
Both crimes involve permanent harm that cannot be repaired.
Just because you can’t connect the two crimes in your head, doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Get out of your own head.
Sure, but he’s not wrong. It’s still bizarre and unnecessary. There’s no need to generalize every freaking situation. It eventually waters down language IMO.
But in one case the victim is a person with feelings and in the other case it’s a tree. I find it quite concerning that people seem to struggle to see the difference.
I find it concerning that you can’t see the similarities between a crime that involves a person with feelings, and a crime that involves an entire community with feelings.
It shows your complete lack of knowledge of biology to assert that trees don’t have “feelings”. They may not experience them as we do, but there is way more research to be done before that can be definitively stated. With as much as we’ve learned about fungi associated with tree roots that help them communicate, as well as chemicals they release when damaged to warn other trees, I think it is safe to say that trees and other plants do indeed experience distress.
Rape is a crime in which one person acts heinously out of a desire for control over another person/creature, causing irreparable harm. There are various kinds of rape as well. Do you know, that in history, when one city was invaded by an army, that would be referred to as a rape of that city?
So yes, I think there is plenty of logic to hate both of those youths equally. Both committed atrocities against innocent parties that have resulted in extreme harm.