Man who tried to sell stolen £4.75m golden toilet from Blenheim Palace sentenced

A man involved in a plot to steal £4.75m gold toilet from the house where Sir Winston Churchill was born has been handed a suspended sentence.

The fully functioning 18-carat gold artwork, titled America, was stolen from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire during the early hours of 14 September 2019.

In March, Frederick Doe, 36, was found guilty of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property.

On Monday at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Ian Pringle KC sentenced Doe to 21 months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered him to do 240 hours unpaid work.

A court previously heard how Doe, also known as Frederick Sines, from Windsor in Berkshire, helped mastermind James Sheen sell some of the gold in the weeks after the theft.

Sheen, from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, had 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.

Co-accused Michael Jones, from Oxford, had denied any wrongdoing, but was found guilty of burglary at the time of Doe’s conviction.

Speaking outside court, Doe said he had been taken advantage of by those who stole the toilet.

“My good nature has been taken advantage of. I got caught up in something I should not have and now I just want to go home and enjoy my family. I am a good person,” he told the PA news agency.

He left court in a car surrounded by a group of friends, who shouted “he is a good person” and said they would be going for a drink to celebrate.

Both Sheen and Jones will be sentenced next month.

How the theft unfolded

During court proceedings, Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC said 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.

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) argued referred to the men getting £26,500 per kilo of the stolen gold.

Jones, who had visited the stately home twice in the days before the raid, 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.

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” during a visit to Blenheim Palace the day before it was taken.

Asked what it was like, he replied: “Splendid.”

None of the gold was ever recovered, with the CPS saying it is likely to have been “broken up or melted down and sold on soon after it was stolen”.