CCTV shows moment thieves roll £4.75m gold toilet out of palace

Police have released CCTV footage of the moment thieves rolled a £4.75 million gold toilet away from Blenheim Palace and bundled it into the back of a car after stealing it in an “audacious” early morning raid.

In footage shown to jurors, two cars tear across the lawn towards the palace before three men make their way inside.

Just five minutes later, they can be seen rolling the 18-carat-gold toilet away from the building before bundling it into the back of a blue VW Golf, causing the car’s suspension to sag under the 98kg weight.

One of the group can be seen clutching the golden toilet seat which is also thrown into the back of the car.

Palace security guards who had been watching on CCTV chased on foot as the two cars sped away from the scene, Oxford Crown Court was told.

The fully functioning toilet was insured for the sum of six million dollars (£4.75 million), the court heard previously.

Entitled America, it had been installed as an artwork at the Oxfordshire country house where Sir Winston Churchill was born.

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, also known as Frederick Doe, of Winkfield, Windsor, Berkshire, and Bora Guccuk, 41, from west London, each deny one count of conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

It is alleged Doe and Guccuk agreed to help one of the men who carried out the burglary, a defendant called James Sheen, to sell some of the gold in the following weeks.

Jurors were told Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, has previously pleaded guilty to burglary.

The toilet, which was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was a star attraction in the exhibition and is believed to have been broken up after it was stolen.

The thieves drove through locked wooden gates into the grounds of Blenheim Palace before breaking in through a window, jurors were told.

“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,” prosecutor Julian Christopher KC said previously.

“Clearly such an audacious raid would not have been possible without lots of preparation.”

Within days of the September 2019 raid, two men were using “car” as a codeword for the stolen gold and contact was made with a Hatton Garden jeweller, it is alleged.

Five days before the exhibition opened at the Oxfordshire palace, Jones visited with his partner Carly Jones on what prosecutors have described as the first of two reconnaissance visits, the court heard.

Speaking before the raid, the Duke of Marlborough’s half-brother, Edward Spencer-Churchill, said the toilet would not be “the easiest thing to nick”.

Mr Spencer-Churchill 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.”

After it was taken, the toilet’s creator Mr Cattelan was said to be “mortified, shocked, praying that it was a prank and that it would come back”, Blenheim Palace chief executive Dominic Hare told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The artwork had been described by critics as a pointed satire against the excesses of wealth.

It gained attention during the first tenure of President Donald Trump when the White House requested to borrow a Vincent van Gogh painting, the Washington Post reported.

Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector declined the request but, perhaps with Mr Trump’s penchant for all things gold in mind, offered the toilet instead.

The trial continues.