Two men jailed for £4.8m gold toilet heist

Sheen was a key player in the heist - a career criminal and the only man convicted of both burglary and selling the gold.

He pleaded guilty last year after police found his DNA at the scene and gold fragments in his clothing.

Police also recovered his phone which contained a wealth of incriminating messages.

Shan Saunders, the senior crown prosecutor on the case, said it was "unusual to have a phone that when downloaded contains so much information".

During the trial, jurors heard voice messages sent by Sheen to Fred Doe, a Berkshire businessman who was convicted for conspiring to sell the gold in March.

Saunders said interpreting the messages was "a long and complicated process", due to the blend of coded language, Romany slang and cockney rhyming slang used.

In one message, Sheen confirmed he was in possession of some of the gold toilet.

It read: "I think you know what I've got... I've just been a bit quiet with it."

He also used the word "car" as code for gold.

" The car is what it is mate, innit? The car is as good as money," he said.

Within two weeks of the heist Sheen had sold 20kg (44lb) of gold - about one fifth of the toilet's weight - to an unknown buyer in Birmingham for £520,000.

A BBC investigation in March revealed Sheen's criminal history.

It found he had been jailed at least six times since 2005 and led organised crime groups that had made more than £5m from fraud and theft - money which authorities had largely failed to recover.

There was no reaction from either of the men when their sentences were read out at Oxford Crown Court on Friday.

Sentencing Sheen, Judge Ian Pringle said he had a "truly shocking list of previous convictions".

Sheen was already serving a 19-year sentence for previous crimes, and he will serve the four-year sentence for the heist consecutively.

The judge said Jones also had a "long and unenviable list of previous convictions".

In the week leading up to the heist, Jones, who worked for Sheen as a roofer, paid two visits to Blenheim.

Just a day prior to the raid, on Sheen's instructions, he booked a timeslot on Blenheim's website to use the gold toilet.

While inside the cubicle, Jones snapped pictures of the golden toilet and a lock on the door.

In one of the trial's lighter moments he confirmed he did use toilet, calling the experience "splendid".

In October 2019, just one month after the heist, police arrested Sheen and Jones but they were subsequently released. They were not charged for another four years.

Det Supt Bruce Riddell, of Thames Valley Police (TVP), said: "We arrested 12 people in total in the investigation, and that brings with it a huge amount of digital devices to examine."

He also said it took months for key forensic evidence to be identified and that the investigation was slowed by the pandemic.

The BBC asked the probation service why Sheen was not recalled to prison in October 2019.

The Ministry of Justice said an arrest did not necessarily mean the offender had breached their licence conditions, and that Sheen was recalled to prison in May 2020 as soon as there was evidence he had done so.

Sheen has remained in prison since May 2020.

Five men were seen on CCTV carrying out the heist but it remains unclear whether Jones was actually at the raid, meaning either three or four burglars remain at large.

Det Supt Riddell said he was "fairly certain" officers knew who two of the other burglars were.

Only four of the 12 people arrested met the evidential threshold to bring charges, he added.