19-05-2025
BREAKING NEWS Son of multimillionaire caravan magnate who tried to sell £4.8m golden toilet after it was stolen from Blenheim Palace in midnight raid avoids prison
The son of a multimillionaire caravan magnate has avoided jail for trying to sell a share of a £4.8m golden toilet snatched from Blenheim Palace in a dramatic five-minute raid.
Fred Doe, 37, was convicted following a trial in March of attempting to broker the sale of around 10 kilos of the stolen gold on behalf of burglar and family friend James Sheen, 40.
Formerly known as Fred Sines, Doe is the son of multimillionaire caravan magnate Maurice 'Fred' Sines - who has been accused by Irish authorities of being an ally of the notorious Kinahan organised crime clan.
The 18-carat golden toilet was an artwork called 'America' by satirist Maurizio Cattelan and had been plumbed in at Blenheim Palace for visitors to use at an exhibition in September 2019.
But in the early hours of September 14 - just two days after the toilet went on display - a gang of five men came screeching into the grounds of Winston Churchill's birthplace in two stolen cars.
Extraordinary CCTV captured the unfolding raid as three of the men smashed their way through a window with sledgehammers and crowbars and emerged just minutes later with the golden toilet. No trace has ever been found.
Within hours of the heist, married father-of-four Doe, who lives in a mansion near Ascot racecourse, messaged Sheen to say he knew about the stolen gold and could help him.
He then approached a jeweller in the Hatton Garden area and arranged for him to value Sheen's gold, but the sale collapsed. The jeweller, Bora Guccuk, was acquitted at trial of laundering the stolen wares.
Judge Ian Pringle KC told a sentencing hearing at Oxford Crown Court today that the value of the gold that Doe was trying to sell was likely worth between £250,000 and £260,000.
Doe, dressed in a white jumper and grey trousers, sat in the dock with two enormous Sports Direct holdalls at his side. He was supported in court by his father and other family.
The judge sentenced Doe to 21 months, suspended for two years, after accepting that he had strong personal mitigation due to his wife's poor health and the wellbeing of his children.
His family clapped and yelled 'yes!' as the judge announced the sentence would be suspended.
Sheen and fellow burglar Michael Jones, 39, are due to be sentenced over their role in the raid next month.
Doe became involved in the conspiracy when he heard Sheen - whom he knew through the traveller community - had snatched the toilet and offered to use his extensive contacts in Hatton Garden to sell the stolen gold.
His father previously told the Mail that he believed authorities were only targeting his son as 'pay back' because they had failed to bring him down over his alleged links to the Kinahans.
Doe had contacted Guccuk, who ran a jewellery shop called Pacha of London in Hatton Garden, within hours of the burglary and set in motion an attempt to sell Sheen's share of the gold.
The middle man gave evidence over several days during the trial and told jurors that he had no idea the gold was stolen - and never would have got involved with the 'idiot' Sheen if he did.
Crispin Aylett KC, defending Doe, told the court today that he was 'a bit-part player who succeeded only in delaying James Sheen in converting his gold into cash'.
'The actual extent of Mr Doe's involvement was to introduce Mr Sheen to Bora Guccuck and Bora Guccuk was unable to come up with the money and, as we know, Mr Sheen took his gold to Birmingham and boasted about the money he made,' Mr Aylett said.
The barrister suggested that Doe's 'good nature' had been taken advantage of by those involved in the conspiracy.
Sheen, who pleaded guilty to burglary in April last year, bragged in a message to Doe that he had made £520,000 from selling his share of the gold to an unidentified jeweller in Birmingham.
His message was accompanied by a picture showing a large pile of cash.
Questions have mounted for police over their failure to snare the three other members of the burglary gang, despite one man being heavily linked to the burglary throughout the trial.
An individual named in court as Carl Davies was said to be the first person to contact Doe about the stolen gold and he later went with Sheen to Birmingham when he sold his share.
He also lived in a caravan park where cell site data placed Sheen's phone just minutes after the burglary.
'Carl Davies seems to be in this up to his neck,' Crispin Aylett KC, representing Doe, told the court during his closing speech in March.
'At very least there is evidence of his telephone going to Birmingham.
'Why isn't he in the dock?'
Mr Aylett said it was 'a somewhat unsatisfactory state of affairs' that the other burglars had 'filled their boots', while the police were left unable to 'flush them out'.
None of the gold bullion merchants who bought the stolen gold have been charged and the ultimate fate of the gold remains a mystery.
Doe's father was linked to the Kinahan clan in evidence submitted to Ireland's High Court by its Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).
He was said to be particularly close to senior gang member called Liam Byrne, with whom he has been photographed on a sunshine holiday.
Doe Sr was also pictured among the VIP mourners at the funeral of Byrne's brother David, who was shot dead in 2016 by a hitman from the rival gang, at a Dublin boxing match weigh-in.
He furiously denied having anything to do with the world of organised crime when he spoke to the Mail in March - claiming he was being persecuted just for being friends with the Kinahans.
