Alternative (and a bit far-fetched) theory, let's imagine a defense that could save him: "Dumb but not malicious" The kid was trying to get pocket money, and

Alternative (and a bit far-fetched) theory, let's imagine a defense that could save him: "Dumb but not malicious" The kid was trying to get pocket money, and he was tasked to cut down the tree. He thought it was a legitimate job, so he took down the tree. This is also why he used professional tools like a chainsaw. Unfortunately, we cannot identify the requester + the kid had no way to verify the Tree Preservation Order because of technical issues; (the website with the TPO actually yields an error "This request was blocked by our security service (Imperva)" / "Page not found", depending on the dataset you pick)