Four men to stand trial over theft of £4.8 million gold toilet from Blenheim Palace

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Four men are to stand trial over the theft of a £4.8 million gold toilet from Blenheim Palace.

The remaining defendant to enter his plea, Bora Guccuk, 40, from west London, denied one depend of conspiracy to switch legal property at Oxford Crown Court on Thursday.

It comes after James Sheen, 39, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, and Michael Jones, 38, from Oxford, each pleaded not responsible in January to burgling the 18-carat artwork set up in an in a single day raid within the early hours of September 14 2019.

Sheen has additionally denied a cost of transferring legal property, whereas each he and 35-year-old Frederick Sines, aka Frederick Doe, from Ascot, Berkshire, have denied a cost of conspiracy to switch legal property.

All 4 defendants are subsequent due to seem in court docket on 24 February 2025.

The absolutely functioning toilet, titled America, was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2016 for the New York Guggenheim museum, the place it was utilized by greater than 100,000 guests.

It was put in at Blenheim Palace, the Oxfordshire nation home the place Sir Winston Churchill was born, because the centrepiece of an exhibition that began the week earlier than it was stolen.

Speaking to The New York Times, Mr Cattelan, who has a historical past of mischievous stunts, was on the time pressured to problem a denial that he orchestrated the theft of his creation in a Banksy-style prank.

The theft of the toilet, which the artist meant to be “one per cent art for the 99 per cent”, reminded some sceptics of Banksy’s art work Girl with a Balloon, which shredded itself moments after being bought for £1 million in October 2018.

Mr Cattelan can also be recognized to have stolen the entire present of one other artist at a gallery in Amsterdam in 1996. He then tried to go off the exhibition as his personal work. Despite police being referred to as, he was allowed to proceed the show for a number of days.

The artist stated on the time that the theft was a “survival tactic” after he was given solely two weeks to produce work for his exhibit. He added: “I took the path of least resistance. It was the quickest and easiest thing to do.”

Mr Cattelan is about to produce what curators described as a “large outdoor artwork” on the façade of a jail chapel for the upcoming Venice Biennale of Art.

The Vatican unveiled its groundbreaking undertaking earlier in March. The multimedia set up might be positioned inside Venice’s ladies’s jail, created with the energetic participation of inmates and artists and open to the general public below strict safety circumstances.

Mr Cattelan is probably the most notable amongst half a dozen artists who will work alongside them, reflecting Francis’ perception within the worth of dialogue, solidarity and fraternity.

Mr Cattelan’s return to Venice comes nearly a quarter-century after he shocked Catholics together with his provocative “The Ninth Hour,” (La Nona Ora) that includes a life-sized wax Pope John Paul II mendacity on his aspect, crushed by an enormous black meteorite, that was displayed on the 2001 Biennale.