Melting potty
Fears £4.8m toilet pinched from Blenheim Palace has been turned into liquid gold
A SOLID gold toilet worth £4.8million has been stolen from Blenheim Palace within 48 hours of going on display – and may already have been melted down.
The stately home has now admitted that security arrangements ‘need to be challenged’ after a gang mounted a smash and grab raid using two vans early on Saturday.
The fully working toilet, which weighs hundreds of pounds, went on show on Thursday in an exhibition by artist Maurizio Cattelan. Visitors were invited to book three-minute slots to spend a penny. Police said the burglary also caused significant damage and flooding at the 18th century Oxfordshire palace because the toilet had been plumbed in.
A 66- year- old man arrested shortly after the raid remained in custody yesterday, but the 18carat artwork had not been recovered. Mr Cattelan, 58, said of the theft: ‘I wish it was a prank.
‘Who’s so stupid to steal a toilet? I want to be positive and think the robbery is a kind of Robin Hoodinspired action,’ the Italian told the New York Times. Blenheim chief executive Dominic Hare said the palace, where Sir Winston Churchill was born, had a ‘sophisticated security system’ but ‘we need to challenge ourselves on [what happened].’ He said it was ‘not out of the question [the toilet] would be melted down’.
It had been situated in a woodpanelled room near the main entrance when the raid occurred hours after the exhibition launch party. Blenheim Palace, home to the 12th Duke of Marlborough, was shut on Saturday but reopened yesterday as news of the burglary sparked a wave of online jokes like ‘Blenheim loo- dunnit’ and ‘bog-standard burglary’.
Last month Edward SpencerChurchill – half-brother of the current Duke of Marlborough – dismissed fears that the gold throne was at risk. ‘It’s not going to be the easiest thing to nick,’ he said. ‘It’s plumbed in and a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So I don’t plan to be guarding it.’
Mr Hare said the gold toilet – called America – was a comment on the American dream, ‘[It’s] the idea of something that’s incredibly precious and elite being made accessible, potentially to everybody, as we all need to go when we need to go,’ he said. Thames Valley Police said they are pursuing a ‘number of lines of inquiry’ after the raid.