Man accused of stealing gold toilet checked web headlines about raid – court

One of the men on trial over the theft of a £4.75 million gold toilet from Blenheim Palace had scoured the internet for details about the raid, a jury has been told.

Within days of the burglary, Michael Jones had used his phone to search for local newspaper stories with headlines including “66-year-old man released on bail after toilet stolen from Blenheim” and “police hunt for two stocky men after spate of burglaries,” Oxford Crown Court heard.

The 18-carat gold work by Maurizio Cattelan had been installed as an artwork at the Oxfordshire country, house where Sir Winston Churchill was born, and was stolen just two days after the exhibition had opened to the public.

Headlines that read “Maurizio Cattelan speaks out after Blenheim’s £4.8m gold toilet stolen” and “Blenheim Palace reopens after gold toilet stolen in burglary” were also among the stories that were searched on Jones’s telephone on September 16 2019.

Interest was also sparked from headlines that read “Mystery of the golden toilet in Highworth,” plus “Blenheim Palace gold toilet thieves could have struck days earlier” on September 20 2019.

Jones, 39, from Oxford, has pleaded not guilty to burglary.

The toilet artwork, entitled America, weighed approximately 98 kilos and was taken in a five-minute “audacious raid” in the early hours of September 14 2019.

It was insured for 6.0 million US dollars (£4.75 million) and was made from gold which was itself worth about £2.8 million.

It is believed to have been broken up after it was stolen.

The thieves drove through locked, wooden gates into the grounds of the palace before breaking in through a window.

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.

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.

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.

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

On Thursday, the jury were also told he has pleaded guilty to an offence of transferring or converting gold in Birmingham on September 27 2019.

They also heard that metal fragments which were “indistinguishable from the gold from which the gold toilet America had been made,” were found on his belongings.

The belongings included a grey tracksuit and a pair of black gloves that were found on the dashboard of a Ford transit van which he used for his work as a builder.

Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC said that hundreds of gold-coloured metal fragments were found on the surfaces of the grey tracksuit trousers and from the pockets.

He said: “Four of these were examined in detail, with the results indicating the presence of 18-carat gold which was indistinguishable from the gold from which the gold toilet America had been made.

“Gold fragments were also found on the gloves found in the Ford transit van, a sample of which were also found to be indistinguishable from the gold from which the golden toilet America had been made.”

The jury also heard that “DNA likely to have been left” by Sheen was found on the sledge hammer left in the toilet cubicle at Blenheim Palace and on the driver’s window controls on a stolen Isuzu that was found abandoned after the burglary.

Tests also showed Sheen’s DNA was also likely to have been on a pair of black gloves found on October 16 2019 on the dashboard of a Ford transit van he used for his work as a builder.

There is no forensic evidence which links Jones to any of these items, the court heard.

The trial continues.