Two men have been found guilty over the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from the house where Sir Winston Churchill was born.
Michael Jones helped steal the fully-functioning 18-carat gold toilet, which was an artwork named America, after breaking into Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire in the early hours of 14 September 2019.
Jones, from Oxford, had visited the stately home twice in the days before the raid but told the jury they were not reconnaissance trips.
The 39-year-old was found guilty of burglary at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday.
Frederick Doe, 36, also known as Frederick Sines, from Windsor, Berkshire, was found guilty of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property.
Bora Guccuk, 41, from west London, was found not guilty of the same charge.
Doe helped James Sheen – who has been described as the mastermind of the raid – to sell some of the gold in the weeks after the theft.
Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, earlier pleaded guilty to burglary.
He also admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property and one count of transferring criminal property at Oxford Crown Court in April 2024.
Jones had worked as a roofer and builder for Sheen from around 2018 and was effectively his “right-hand man”, his trial heard.
On one of his visits before the burglary, Jones took photos from inside the building of the window that the thieves would use to enter the stately home.
The day before the raid he took photos of the toilet itself, the lock on the toilet door and further pictures of the same window from the outside.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC said during trial that it appears five men carried out the raid – however only Jones and Sheen have been caught.
Sheen and his accomplices drove two stolen vehicles, a VW Golf and an Isuzu truck, through locked gates at Blenheim Palace shortly before 5am on the night of the raid.
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Thames Valley Police said three men armed with sledgehammers and a crowbar gained entry to the palace, smashed through the solid wooden door and tore the toilet from its fixings.
The carefully planned raid was over within five minutes.
The gold was believed to be worth about £2.8m at the time of the theft.
However the artwork, which weighed around 98kg, had been insured for the price of £4.75m.
A couple of days after the burglary, Sheen contacted Doe about selling the gold.
Through coded messages, the two men talked about “cars” and getting offered “26 and a half” – which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says refers to the men getting £26,500 per kilo of the stolen gold.
Jones was arrested on 16 October 2019 before officers analysed his phone.
The force found he had searched for news reports about the stolen toilet on 20 September 2019, jurors were told.
Meanwhile, Sheen’s DNA was found both on a sledgehammer left at the scene and in the stolen Isuzu truck used in the raid.
Tracksuit bottoms seized at his home had hundreds of gold fragments on them, which when analysed were indistinguishable from the gold from which the toilet was made.
The sculpture, which was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was the star attraction of an exhibition at the country house before it was stolen.
It could be used as a toilet by members of the public – with Jones telling the jury he took advantage of the artwork’s “facilities” the day before it was taken.
Asked what it was like, he replied: “Splendid.”
None of the gold was ever recovered, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saying it is likely to have been “broken up or melted down and sold on soon after it was stolen”.
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Jones and Sheen will be sentenced at a date yet to be set.
Doe will be sentenced on 19 May.
Shan Saunders, from the CPS, said it was “an audacious raid which had been carefully planned and executed – but those responsible were not careful enough, leaving a trail of evidence”.
