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Two men have been found guilty of the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from the Oxfordshire country house where Winston Churchill was born.
Blenheim Palace’s 18-carat lavatory was stolen in September 2019 while it was featuring in an art exhibition and is believed to have been split up and disposed of.
Michael Jones, from Oxford, was convicted on Tuesday of planning the burglary, which took place in the early hours of the morning. He had visited the palace twice before the theft but denied these were reconnaissance trips.
He previously told jurors at Oxford crown court he “took advantage of” the gold toilet’s “facilities” while at the country house the day before it was stolen. Asked what it was like, he replied: “Splendid.”
The court heard that Jones had worked as a roofer, builder and “right-hand man” for James Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, who had pleaded guilty to burglary, conspiracy to transfer criminal property and one count of transferring criminal property.
Another man, Frederick Doe, 36, helped Sheen to sell some of the gold in the following weeks after the robbery and was found guilty on Tuesday of conspiracy to transfer criminal property. Bora Guccuk, 39, from west London, was found not guilty of the same charge.
The fully functioning toilet, created by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was plumbed in at the time of the heist, so its removal led to flooding and resulted in damage to the 18th century stately home and Unesco world heritage site.
The toilet, weighing around 98kg, was fitted in 2016 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where 100,000 people queued to use it. It was moved to Blenheim and into a chamber opposite the room where Churchill was born, for Cattelan’s first solo UK show in more than 20 years.
Cattelan created the sculpture – called “America” – to reflect the excesses of the art market and evoke the American dream of opportunity for all.
Speaking at the time of the theft, he said he hoped the theft was a prank and asked: “Who’s so stupid to steal a toilet? [The work titled] America was the 1% for the 99%.”
Blenheim Palace is the ancestral seat of the Duke of Marlborough. Before the toilet’s installation, the duke’s half-brother, Edward Spencer-Churchill, founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, said the lavatory would not be “the easiest thing to nick”.
He told the Times: “Firstly, it’s plumbed in; and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don’t plan to be guarding it.”
The heist was carried out at 4.50am in the morning when two stolen vehicles, a VW Golf and an Isuzu truck, entered the palace grounds at speed.
Three robbers armed with sledgehammers and a crowbar gained entry to the palace, smashed through a solid wooden door and tore the toilet from its fixings.
They carried the toilet out of the palace, rolled it along the ground, and placed it into the boot of the VW.
In the following days, Sheen made plans to sell the gold, which is believed to have been moved to different locations and melted down in the hours after the raid.
According to Thames Valley police, Doe contacted Sheen and offered to find a buyer for the gold and brokered the deal. During the deal-making, both men referred to the gold bars as “cars”, each worth £26,000.
Jones was arrested on 16 October 2019 and police analysed his phone. He had allegedly been searching for newspaper reports about the stolen toilet on 20 September, jurors were told previously.
Doe will be sentenced on 19 May. Jones and Sheen will be sentenced at a later date.
Det Supt Bruce Riddell, head of Thames Valley police’s specialist operations department, said the convictions were the result of a vast amount of police work and that additional investigations are still trying to recover assets related to previous criminality by Sheen.
A serious crime prevention order has already been obtained for Sheen after a previous conviction, which will be in place for five years upon his release from prison.
“As part of the investigation a number of other arrests were made but further charges could not be brought and it is clear that there are others who were involved in this crime,” said Riddell.
Shan Saunders, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This was an audacious raid which had been carefully planned and executed – but those responsible were not careful enough, leaving a trail of evidence in the form of forensics, CCTV footage and phone data.
“It has been a complex case to prosecute, involving a nationwide investigation with many lines of inquiry to identify those who were subsequently charged in relation to the theft.
“While none of the gold was ever recovered – no doubt having been broken up or melted down and sold on soon after it was stolen – we are confident this prosecution has played a part in disrupting a wider crime and money-laundering network.”
