Police flush out seventh suspect as they make fresh arrest over theft of £5m solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace
- Thames Valley Police arrested a 44-year-old man in Kent on Thursday, June 18
- He was questioned by officers before being released under investigation
- Five men and one woman had previously been arrested by investigating officers
- The solid gold toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace on September 14, 2019
Police have arrested a seventh suspect in connection with the theft of a £5 million solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
The 44-year-old man from Kent was arrested on suspicion of burglary on Thursday, June 18 and later released under investigation.
So far six men and one woman have been detained in connection with the raid on the stately home on September 14, 2019.
A solid gold toilet was fitted in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, as part of an exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. It was stolen in a burglary on September 14, 2019
The raiders pulled the toilet from the wall, leaving behind several pipes and the toilet paper
Blenheim Palace, pictured, is a World Heritage site and the birth place of Winston Churchill
Officers have not yet charged anyone in connection with the incident.
The raiders stole the solid gold toilet – which was fully operational – which has not yet been discovered.
The toilet was created by controversial Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Earlier in the investigation, officers arrested a 35 year old man from London on suspicion of handling stolen goods.
A 66-year-old man from Evesham was arrested on suspicion of burglary.
A Cheltenham man, aged 35, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to burgle.
Three people from Oxford, two men aged 35 and 34 and a 36-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit a burglary other than a dwelling.
All of those arrested have been released under investigation.
The toilet had previously been on display in the Guggenheim museum in New York, where more than 100,000 people queued up to use the facility, which is fully operational
A 35-year-old man from London was been arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods.
A 66-year-old man from Evesham has been arrested on suspicion of burglary.
A 35-year-old man from Cheltenham has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to burgle.
A 35-year-old man, a 34-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, all from Oxford, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit a burglary other than a dwelling.
All of these people have been released under investigation while the investigation continues.
The 18 carat toilet, named America, was installed at the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
When in New York, more than 100,000 people queued up to use the toilet at the Guggenheim museum before it arrived in the UK last year.
Curators were shocked to discover the toilet had been ripped from the wall, leaving pipework exposed in the World Heritage site which dates from the early 18th century.
Maurizio Cattelan: Artist who lampooned Hitler and the Pope and made 100,000 queue for the toilet
Pictured: Maurizio Cattelan at Monanie de Paris in 2016
Maurizio Cattelan is one of the most controversial contemporary artists of our time, notorious for his satirical sculptures and provocative installations.
Now 58 and living and working in New York City, he was born in 1960 in Padua, Italy.
He began his artistic career in his twenties, making wooden furniture in the Italian city of Forli in the 1980s.
One of his earliest pieces, a sign of things to come, was an ostrich with its head buried in the ground, made to look like Pablo Picasso and taped to a wall of a Milan art gallery.
He first achieved worldwide notoriety in 1999 when he revealed his work La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour) a wax statue of Pope John Paul II being struck by a meteorite.
In 2011 he caused further controversy with ‘others’ a collection of 2,000 stuffed pigeons, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale art exhibition.
It was in this year that he had a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where all his pieces were suspended from the ceiling.
After roaring success, five years later in 2015, Cattelan decided to replace one of the toilets in the museum with a fully-functioning replica made of 18-karat gold.
More than 100,000 people queued to use it. Among his other notable works are ‘Him’, a wax model of a schoolboy version of Hitler kneeling on the floor in prayer and his many taxidermy pieces, including an entire horse and crocodile suspended upside down from the ceiling.