Two men jailed for stealing $7 million 18-carat gold toilet from Winston Churchill’s birthplace

LONDON – Two men were jailed on June 13 for stealing an 18-carat gold toilet that had been on display as an artwork in an exhibition at former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s birthplace.

The fully functioning toilet – a work titled America, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan – was stolen from the Churchill family seat of Blenheim Palace, a major tourist attraction and Unesco World Heritage Site, in southern England.

Prosecutor Julian Christopher told jurors at the start of the trial at Oxford Crown Court in February that a group of five men had driven two stolen vehicles through locked wooden gates into the palace grounds before dawn on Sept 14, 2019.

They broke in through a window, smashed down a wooden door, ripped the toilet from the wall and left after five minutes in the building.

The toilet, weighing 98kg, was insured for US$6 million (S$7.7 million).

Prosecutors say it was probably divided into smaller amounts of gold to sell it off. None of the gold has ever been recovered.

James Sheen, 40, had pleaded guilty before trial to burglary, conspiring to convert or transfer the gold and converting or transferring the gold.

Michael Jones, 39, was found guilty of burglary by a jury, having pleaded not guilty.

Judge Ian Pringle said the pair had played important roles in the “bold and brazen heist”, though the judge said he could not be sure that Jones was present during the burglary.

Sheen was sentenced to four years in jail, with the sentence to begin at the end of a separate jail term of nearly 20 years he is currently serving for a series of thefts.

Jones was sentenced to 27 months in prison. REUTERS