Mumbai: When the fire alarms began to blare in the early hours of 14 September 2019, Eleanor Paice jolted awake to the sound of smashing glass. She knew something was wrong. At that time, she didn't know that a gold toilet, made of 18 carat gold, weighing 98 kilos, was being stolen. She quickly began evacuating to the great courtyard. But unbeknownst to her, she was running straight into the final moments of an audacious heist.
The BBC put pieced together the sequence for the first time. Five men had smashed their way into the palace, ripped out the £4.8m solid gold toilet and fled in a stolen Volkswagen Golf. The working loo, entitled America, had been on display for just two days at the 18th-Century stately home, plumbed in as part of an exhibition by the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Now, more than five years on, a total of three men have been convicted in connection with the heist. It was a crime that intrigued art lovers, delighted the press, and coined countless potty-themed puns. BBC gained exclusive behind-the-scenes access to staff at Blenheim Palace to understand the heist and security failures from their perspective. It was the night before, Blenheim chief executive Dominic Hare was at a glamorous exhibition launch party being held at the palace, hosted by Cattelan himself.
It was America's first time on display outside of New York and the artwork's presence was creating a buzz. He remembers slipping away from the festivities, hoping for a turn on the fully usable toilet. But when confronted with a line, he told himself, "that's okay, there's no point queuing. You can come back tomorrow and have a look". But just a few hours later, his colleague Paice was witnessing the final moments as the 98kg artwork was being heaved into a boot.
She recalls a confusing and fast-moving scene: "It was just shadows and quick movement. I just saw them move towards the car, get in the car….and then the car just sped straight off." From the burglars entering and exiting the courtyard, the audacious heist had taken just five minutes. Police arrived shortly after, and it was only when staff searched the palace that they realised what had been stolen. Then there was the horror of the flooded, shattered crime scene. When the palace reopened a day later, the controversy was addressed with a theatrical flourish. Staff re-strung police tape across the shattered cubicle, just metres from the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, and exhibited the crime scene as part of the now toilet-less Cattelan show.
In the following days, Paice said the palace was "slammed", with hordes wanting to glimpse the destruction. "People were more interested in seeing where the golden toilet had been stolen from than in coming and see the golden toilet itself," she added. "That toilet survived New York City. And if it survived New York City, it should have survived Blenheim Palace," says Christopher Marinello, an art recovery lawyer brought in by insurers to look at the case.
In his view, Blenheim's security "failed miserably". It is clear from interviews with palace staff that the 18-carat gold toilet had not been deemed a security risk. A month before the burglary, Edward Spencer-Churchill, the founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, told the Sunday Times: "It's not going to be the easiest thing to nick. Firstly, it's plumbed in, and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don't plan to be guarding it."
Hare said they were "far more worried" about other controversial artworks in the exhibition - a statue of a meteor-struck pope, union flags the public walked on, and a statue of a praying Adolf Hitler. He admitted the toilet's status as a quirky art object had eclipsed the fact it was worth £2.8m in gold alone. It was left unguarded during closing hours, with no CCTV monitoring the cubicle door.
But the gang exploited other security flaws that night, including no patrols and easily breached gates. Even after the raid, staff did not immediately realise the toilet had been the target. Paice says she fleetingly imagined they had come for Churchill's childhood lock of hair, which the palace displays. The palace has since seen its security overhauled with a "very significant upgrade", while it has also been a wake-up call for other stately homes. The stolen gold has never been recovered but the story will live on as a quirky footnote in the history of one of Britain's most popular palaces.
