Man pleads guilty in £4.8m gold toilet theft from Winston Churchill's ancestral home

James "Jimmy" Sheen, a notorious thief, has admitted to stealing a £4.8 million solid gold toilet two days after it was installed at Blenheim Palace, Sir Winston Churchill's former Oxfordshire home.

The 39-year-old thief on Tuesday pleaded guilty to burglary, conspiracy to transfer criminal property, and transferring criminal property in the robbery, The Sun reported.

The toilet was made by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and was loaned to the palace in 2019 after previously appearing at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The fully functional 18-carat gold toilet was once offered to Donald Trump. Visitors were allowed to use it in three-minute slots but it disappeared after a smash-and-grab raid.

Sheen was previously imprisoned for 17 years for a series of UK lockdown burglaries, including gas-fueled bombings of 18 automated teller machines (ATM) and stealing £400,000 worth of tractors in one night.

The career criminal made £903,000 in ill-gotten gains as he terrorised the country.

Three other men are due to stand trial in relation to the toilet theft in February next year.

Judge Michael Gledhill KC adjourned sentencing Sheen until the others go on trial.

Blenheim Palace is a country house located Near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire.

The palace, built between 1705 and 1722, is one of England's largest houses and was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage Site in 1987.

The palace served as the Churchill family’s home for 300 years and is the birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill.