The inside story of Blenheim's gold toilet heist

In the aboriginal hours of 14 September 2019, Eleanor Paice jolted awake to the dependable of smashing glass.

Living successful a unit level supra Blenheim Palace, the impermanent services supervisor was utilized to unusual noises. But erstwhile occurrence alarms began to blare, she knew thing was wrong.

She rapidly began evacuating to the large courtyard. But unbeknownst to her, she was moving consecutive into the final moments of an audacious heist.

Five men had smashed their mode into the palace, ripped retired a £4.8m coagulated golden toilet and fled successful a stolen Volkswagen Golf.

The moving loo, entitled America, had been connected show for conscionable 2 days astatine the 18th Century stately home, plumbed successful arsenic portion of an accumulation by the Italian conceptual creator Maurizio Cattelan.

Now, much than 5 years on, a full of 3 men person been convicted successful transportation to the heist.

James Sheen, 40, from Oxford, pleaded blameworthy to burglary and transferring transgression spot successful 2024, portion Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, was recovered blameworthy of burglary astatine Oxford Crown Court connected Tuesday.

Fred Doe, 36, from Windsor, was convicted of conspiracy to transportation transgression property. Bora Guccuk, 41, from westbound London, was cleared of the aforesaid charge.

It was a transgression that intrigued creation lovers, delighted the property and coined countless potty-themed puns.

Now, the BBC has gained exclusive behind-the-scenes entree to unit astatine Blenheim Palace to recognize the heist and information failures from their perspective.

It was the nighttime before, Blenheim main enforcement Dominic Hare was astatine a glamorous accumulation motorboat enactment being held astatine the palace, hosted by Cattelan himself.

It was America's archetypal clip connected show extracurricular of New York and the artwork's beingness was creating a buzz.

He remembers slipping distant from the festivities, hoping for a crook connected the afloat usable toilet. But erstwhile confronted with a line, helium told himself "that's okay, there's nary constituent queuing. You tin travel backmost time and person a look".

But conscionable a fewer hours later, his workfellow Ms Paice was witnessing the last moments arsenic the 98kg (216lbs) artwork was being heaved into a boot.

She recalls a confusing and fast-moving scene: "It was conscionable shadows and speedy movement. I conscionable saw them determination towards the car, get successful the car….and past the car conscionable sped consecutive off."

From the burglars entering and exiting the courtyard, the audacious heist had taken conscionable 5 minutes.

Police arrived soon after, and it was lone erstwhile unit searched the palace they realised what had been stolen.

"That was when... I felt my tummy drop," Ms Paice says. "And I thought, this is big."

Soon, the main executive's telephone was buzzing him awake: "Dom, we've been hit."

He said it took him a fewer moments to realise helium was not dreaming earlier rushing to the palace.

His alleviation that unit were unharmed past mingled with the fearfulness of a flooded, shattered transgression scene.

"If the aureate toilet successful situ had looked beauteous and cleanable and majestic and untainted, this was the full opposite," Mr Hare said. "This was brutalised, smashed up. This is simply a palace. Palaces don't get smashed up".

When the palace reopened a time later, the contention was addressed with a theatrical flourish.

Staff re-strung constabulary portion crossed the shattered cubicle, conscionable metres from the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, and exhibited the transgression country arsenic portion of the present toilet-less Cattelan show.

Mr Hare said contempt his embarrassment, his choler had prompted him to support it disposable but helium besides realised it could beryllium a gully to the public.

It worked. In the pursuing days Ms Paice said the palace was "slammed", with hordes wanting to glimpse the destruction.

"People were much funny to spot wherever the aureate toilet had been stolen from than to travel and spot the aureate toilet itself," she added.

Palace unit accidental they did spot the humour successful however the property and nationalist approached the crime, but they were inactive profoundly rattled by the raid.

Ms Paice said Blenheim, a harmless and unafraid location for her, did not consciousness "settled successful the aforesaid way" for a agelong time.

"There was ever this anxiousness. If that's happened, thing could happen," she said.

Mr Hare said helium felt some affectional and grateful no-one was harmed, calling the burglars the "most unsafe radical who'd ever visited Blenheim Palace".

"That toilet survived New York City. And if it survived New York City, it should person survived Blenheim Palace," says Christopher Marinello, an creation betterment lawyer brought successful by insurers to look astatine the case.

In his view, Blenheim's information "failed miserably".

What is strikingly wide from interviews with palace staff, the 18-carat golden toilet had not been deemed a information risk.

A period earlier the burglary, Edward Spencer-Churchill, the laminitis of the Blenheim Art Foundation, told the Sunday Times: "It's not going to beryllium the easiest happening to nick.

"Firstly, it's plumbed successful and secondly, a imaginable thief volition person nary thought who past utilized the toilet oregon what they ate. So no, I don't program to beryllium guarding it."

Mr Hare said they were "far much worried" astir different arguable artworks successful the accumulation - a statue of a meteor-struck pope, national flags the nationalist walked connected and a statue of a praying Adolf Hitler.

He admitted the toilet's presumption arsenic a quirky creation entity had eclipsed the information it was worthy £2.8m successful golden alone.

It was near unguarded during closing hours, with nary CCTV monitoring the cubicle door.

But the pack exploited different information flaws that night, including nary patrols and easy breached gates.

Even aft the raid, unit did not instantly realise the toilet had been the target.

Ms Paice says she fleetingly imagined they had travel for Churchill's puerility fastener of hair, which the palace displays.

In the weeks that followed, Mr Hare was motivated to overhaul information astatine apical speed.

He took afloat work for the failures that night.

"It's not a antiauthoritarian determination that we had a definite level of security, it was truly mine. In that consciousness I made Blenheim vulnerable. And we are not susceptible anymore," helium said.

The palace has seen its information overhauled with a "very important upgrade", portion it has besides been a wake-up telephone for different stately homes.

The stolen golden has ne'er been recovered but the communicative volition unrecorded connected arsenic a quirky footnote successful the past of 1 of Britain's astir fashionable palaces.

"There's large and superior past here, wars which changed the people of past connected a continent. Put it against that, it's tiny fry," Mr Hare remarked.

"[But] successful the histories of the mean radical of Blenheim, the radical who've lived present and breathed beingness into this place, it was a precise threatening moment.

"I tin ideate guides successful 150 years' time, it's the benignant of communicative they mightiness notation to."