A man who chopped down a village Christmas tree that had stood for more than a decade as a war memorial has avoided jail.

Dylan McNamara, 26, admitted criminal damage for cutting down the tree in Shotton Colliery, County Durham.

It was felled on the evening of 10 December 2025, just hours after locals had watched the Christmas lights being switched on.

McNamara received a 10-week prison, suspended for 18 months, meaning he won't be locked up unless he commits another offence.

Magistrates in Newton Aycliffe also ordered him to do 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £520 compensation - which will come from his benefits payments.

Prosecutor Paul Doney said the tree had been a focal point for the village and had grown to 20ft tall. Its value was put at several thousand pounds.

McNamara was identified in CCTV footage and police later found a saw hidden behind his fridge.

Defence lawyer Amrit Jandoo said his actions were "probably a joke, probably some kind of attention seeking", but that McNamara himself did not know.

He said his client had been assaulted for cutting down the tree.

Sentencing magistrate William Unsworth told him: "This was not a very nice thing to do, was it, especially when it was a memorial to people who died in the wars?"

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Denise Brooks, manager of Shotton Community Centre, told Sky News that McNamara's actions were "disgraceful".

She said the tree had been growing in the centre of the village for the last 12 years and young people had developed a connection to it.

Parish council clerk Stuart Wardle said it was "very well-known locally as a war memorial".

A second person has also been charged with criminal damage over the incident and will appear in court next month.

(c) Sky News 2026: Man avoids jail after chopping down Shotton Colliery's war memorial Christmas tree