CCTV shows moment thieves roll 拢4.75m gold toilet out of Blenheim Palace
Jurors at Oxford Crown Court are shown CCTV footage from the Blenheim Palace raid during which an 18-carat-gold toilet was stolen.
Tuesday 25 February 2025 15:36, UK
Police have released footage of the moment thieves rolled a 拢4.75m gold toilet away from Blenheim Palace.
Sledgehammer-wielding thieves smashed their way into the Oxfordshire country house where Sir Winston Churchill was born and stole the toilet in September 2019.
In footage shown to jurors on Tuesday, two cars tear across the lawn towards the palace before three men make their way inside.
Five minutes later, they can be seen rolling the 18-carat-gold toilet away from the building during the early morning raid.
It is then bundled 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 vehicles sped away from the scene, Oxford Crown Court was told.
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, pleaded not guilty in January to stealing artwork in an overnight raid in the early hours of 14 September 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 that 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 that Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, has previously pleaded guilty to burglary.
The fully functioning toilet - an artwork called America by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan - was insured for the sum of six million dollars (£4.75m), the court heard previously.
It was a star attraction in an exhibition and is believed to have been broken up after it was stolen.
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.
The thieves drove through locked wooden gates into the grounds of the palace before breaking in through a window, jurors were told.
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"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 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.
The trial continues.