BBC South Investigations
PA MediaA businessman who told a criminal he could sell a stolen £4.8m golden toilet for him “in two split seconds” has been given a 21-month suspended sentence.
Fred Doe, of Winkfield, Windsor, Berkshire, was found guilty of conspiracy to convert or transfer criminal property in March.
The 18-carat toilet was created by the conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan and had been installed at the Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire as part of an exhibition.
Sentencing Doe, Judge Ian Pringle said: “You had a limited function, you had no personal gain, you had no wider involvement, and you were involved for a short period.”
Doe has been sentenced to 21 months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered him to do 240 hours unpaid work.
In September 2019, five men smashed their way into the palace, ripped out the plumbed in toilet and fled in a stolen car.
Michael Jones was convicted of burglary in connection with the crime after a trial at Oxford Crown Court in March.
James Sheen pleaded guilty to burglary in 2024.
Speaking outside court, Doe said: “My good nature has been taken advantage of.
“I got caught up in something I should not have and now I just want to go home and enjoy my family. I am a good person.”
He left in a car surrounded by a group of friends, who shouted “he is a good person” and said they would be going for a drink to celebrate.
The judge said Doe had been of previous good character and accepted that the conspirators may have taken advantage of his good nature.
He added Doe was “targeted” for his legitimate contacts in the Hatton Garden jewellery district.
Just two days after the golden toilet was stolen in an early morning raid, Doe sent a voice message to Sheen saying: “I do know just the man you need to see… the word’s on the street about the car.”
The court heard that ‘car’ was their code word for gold.
Four years later, Sheen would plead guilty to stealing the 18-carat solid-gold toilet.
The hundreds of texts, calls and voice messages sent between the two men in the two weeks following the heist would help convict Doe, a well-connected businessman from the traveller community.
As a work of art, the toilet weighed 98kg (216lbs) and was insured for $6m (£4.8m).
Gold prices at the time would have meant the metal alone was worth £2.8m, the court was told.
It is not known exactly when the thieves broke the toilet into smaller pieces, or whether they melted the gold themselves.
But the court heard within two days of the heist, Sheen was looking for buyers, offering gold at about £25,500 per kilo.
In voice messages Doe, who is also known as Fred Sines, told Sheen that: “I can sell that car for you in two split seconds.”
He was also heard explaining what can be expected of a deal: “Within 48 hours you get paid and it’s guaranteed by me. Personal guarantee.”
But he also urged secrecy: “Jim, very clear. This stays strictly between me and you.”
Doe organised a meeting between Sheen and a bullion dealer in Hatton Garden, London’s jewellery quarter.
He told the toilet thief that the dealer “knows the full score of the car.”
“What the car is, what it was, what it wasn’t. You know, these boys are 100 million percent on me,” he added.
In the end, the deal turned sour and it collapsed without a sale.
Sheen instead sold the twenty kilos of gold – around a fifth of the toilet’s gold – to an unknown buyer in Birmingham for £520,000.
During the trial Doe acknowledged that he had been trying to help Sheen sell the gold, but denied knowing it was stolen, calling the toilet thief an “idiot” who had let him down.
His defence barrister told the jury that “this loss to the nation’s bottoms cannot be laid at the feet of Fred Doe”.
But the jury found him guilty.
In sentencing, Judge Pringle said: “You were at best a middleman who was targeted, in my view, by James Sheen because you knew many people in Hatton Garden because of your knowledge of valuable watches.
“In all the references I’ve read, you were described as kind, caring, selfless and somebody whom some people take advantage of.”
Sheen and Jones, both convicted of burglary, are due to be sentenced in June.
None of the toilet’s gold has ever been recovered.
