Gone in a flush: Blenheim Palace’s $9.6m golden toilet stolen in just five minutes
“All in all, they spent just five minutes in the building.”
The court heard that sledgehammers were left at the scene.
The court heard the robbery at Blenheim Palace was “carefully planned and swiftly carried out”.Credit: Alamy
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, pleaded not guilty in January to stealing the 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.
The prosecution alleged that Jones took a photograph of the artwork the day before while he was “there as part of the reconnaissance for the burglary”.
Christopher said: “Clearly such an audacious raid would not have been possible without lots of preparation.”
He added: “The work of art was never recovered. It appears to have been split up into smaller amounts of gold and never recovered.”
It is alleged that Sines and Guccuk agreed to help one of the men who carried out the burglary – a defendant named James Sheen – to sell some of the gold in the following weeks.
Jurors were told that a fourth defendant, Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, had previously pleaded guilty to burglary.
He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transfer criminal property and one count of transferring criminal property, at Oxford Crown Court in April 2024.
The Telegraph, London
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