As the trial begins into the theft of a solid gold toilet worth almost £3m, the court has heard that the stolen object was likely ‘split up into smaller amounts of gold’ afterwards, and will now never be recovered.
The toilet was part of an exhibition by artist Maurizio Cattelan being held at the stately Oxfordshire home of the Duke of Marlborough. The piece of art, entitled “America”, was the show’s centrepiece before it was ripped from a wood-panelled room and removed from the property.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC told the court this week that a gang made up of five people drove two vans through the locked gates of Blenheim Palace in the early hours of September 14, 2019. They then smashed their way into the building with sledgehammers, which they left at the scene of the crime. In total, prosecutors believe the thieves were in the building for less than five minutes.
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, has been charged with burglary, which he has denied. Similarly, Fred Doe, 36, from Windsor, and Bora Guccuk, 41, a jeweller from west London, have pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiring to transfer criminal property.
Last year, a fourth man involved, James Sheen, 40, from Northamptonshire, pleaded guilty to burglary, transferring criminal property and conspiracy to do the same. He is already serving a 17-year sentence at HMP Five Wells for numerous other thefts, including stealing £400,000 worth of tractors and several high-value trophies from Newmarket’s National Horse Racing Museum.
In this week’s trial, the court heard that Jones made several visits to the toilet in the days before it officially opened to the public. During one of these trips, he took a picture of the room and its locks just 17 hours before the burglary took place.
As part of the trial proceedings, jurors heard that toilet will now never be recovered again, as it was likely “split up into smaller amounts of gold and disposed of.”
The toilet itself is believed to have weighed around 98kg, and was insured for $6m. According to 2019’s gold price, the toilet was worth £2.8m at the time of its theft.
As evidence, the prosecution provided a series of messages discovered on the phones belonging to Sheen, Doe and Guccuk, which prove that the group negotiated a price of more than £25,000 per kilo, for around 20kg of the stolen gold.
Presenting his case for the prosecution, Mr Christopher told the court: “The men, five of them, drove through locked wooden gates into the grounds of Blenheim Palace shortly before 5 am in two stolen vehicles, an Isuzu truck and a VW Golf.
“They drove across the field, up to the front steps, smashed and broke in through a window. They knew precisely where to go. Then broke down the wooden door to the cubicle where the toilet was fully plumbed in and removed it, leaving water pouring out of the pipes, and drove away.
“All in all, they spent just five minutes in the building. Clearly such an audacious raid would not have been possible without lots of preparation.”
The trial continues.
