A raid which saw a £2,800,000 gold toilet stolen from an Oxfordshire palace was pulled off in just five minutes, a court has heard.
The ‘audacious’ raid was carried out at Blenheim Palace, the property where Sir Winston Churchill was born.
The toilet, which was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was a star attraction in an exhibition when it was stolen by sledgehammer-wielding thieves who smashed their way into the palace.
Within days of the raid, two men were using the word ‘car’ as a codeword for the stolen gold and contact was made with a Hatton Garden jeweller, the prosecution said.
‘It was an unusual work of art, being a fully functioning toilet made of 18-carat gold, entitled America,’ Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC said.
‘It weighed approximately 98kg and was insured for the sum of £4.75 million. The gold it was made from was itself worth in the region of £2.8 million at the time,’ he added.
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, pleaded not guilty in January to stealing artwork in an overnight raid in the early hours of September 14, 2019.
Frederick Sines, 36, of Winkfield, Windsor, Berkshire, and Bora Guccuk, 41, from west London, have each denied conspiracy to transfer criminal property.
‘The burglary was carefully planned and swiftly carried out,’ Mr Christopher said. ‘The men, five of them it appears, 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 a field, up to the front steps and smashed and broke in through a window. They knew precisely where to go, broke down the wooden door to the cubicle where the toilet was fully plumbed in, 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.’
A photograph was taken the day before the toilet was stolen – which the prosecution has alleged was part of ‘reconnaissance’ for the burglary.
The solid gold toilet was never recovered – believed to have been split up into smaller amounts of gold.
Doe and Guccuk allegedly helped one of the burglars to help sell off the gold in the following weeks.
Jurors were told that a fourth defendant, James Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, previously pleaded guilty to burglary.
Jones was arrested on October 16, 2019, and police analysed his phone. He had allegedly been searching for newspaper reports about the stolen toilet on September 20.
It was also suggested that mobile telephone data allegedly appears to put Sheen, Doe and Guccuk in the vicinity of the Hatton Garden jeweller on September 23. The trial continues.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Boy, 15, ‘beat dog walker, 80, to death with a slider while girl, 13, filmed’
MORE: Vulnerable woman who lay dead in flat for three years had been ‘left to fend for herself’
MORE: BBC worker found dead in Kenyan hotel room was murdered by an intruder
