An armed criminal was today convicted of robbing Mark Cavendish and his wife Peta of £700,000 of watches after threatening to stab the Olympic cyclist.
Romario Henry, 31, has been found guilty in a knifepoint raid at their home in November 2021 at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Cavendish, 37, had been asleep with his wife Peta when balaclava-clad burglars broke into their home in the Ongar area of Essex at around 2.30am and threatened to stab him.
They took items including two Richard Mille watches valued at £400,000 and £300,000, as well as two phone, a safe and Louis Vuitton suitcase
Romario Henry, 31 (left) and Oludewa Okorosobo, 28, during their trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. Romario Henry has been found guilty of the robbery at the home of Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish in November 2021. His co-defendant Oludewa Okorosobo denied two counts of robbery and was cleared by the jury
Henry, 31, of Lewisham, south-east London, denied two counts of robbery but was found guilty on both counts by a majority verdict of 10 jurors to two following 14 hours and 35 minutes of deliberation.
His co-defendant Oludewa Okorosobo, 28, of Camberwell, south London, denied two counts of robbery and was cleared by the jury.
Okorosobo, who held his head in his hands as he was cleared, had earlier told jurors that he was stabbed in the leg on September 16, 2021 – months prior to the robbery.
He said in a prepared statement to police in December 2021 that he was ‘unable to do any’ of the alleged offences, and that ‘any human could see I’m incapable of doing this’.
He also said that he had loaned his mobile phone, which connected with cell masts in the Ongar area on the night, to a man who has admitted robbery.
Okorosobo said that he did not go to the Cavendish address and was not with his phone, but had let Ali Sesay borrow it to use a navigation app.
Henry, meanwhile, who showed no visible reaction as he was convicted.
He will be sentenced on February 7 along with Sesay, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, who admitted two counts of robbery at an earlier hearing.
The trial was told that 28-year-old Sesay’s DNA was found on the phone of Peta Cavendish, which was taken and found outside the property.
Mrs Cavendish, who like her husband was naked during the robbery, had told jurors she had heard a noise that woke her in the night and went downstairs to investigate.
She recalled seeing ‘men’s figures in balaclavas, and they were running towards the bottom of the stairs’, and believed there were ‘between three and five’ intruders.
CCTV image taken from the property of Mark Cavendish showing suspects leaving through the open front gate after the robbery
They took items including two Richard Mille watches with a combined value of £700,000.
The Olympic cyclist, 37, was asleep alongside his wife Peta (pictured together) when balaclava-clad burglars broke into his home
A picture issued by the Crown Prosecution Service showing suspect George Goddard topping up a mobile phone, which was shown to the jury
She said that she ran back to the bedroom shouting ‘get back’ or ‘get in’ to her husband, who was unable to activate a panic alarm.
He had attempted to reach the alarm, but was jumped on by an intruder who started to punch him in the head.
Mrs Cavendish told the trial that her husband was ‘dragged from his feet’ before he was assaulted.
She told of how one intruder had her husband in a headlock, before adding: ‘One of them held a large black knife to his throat and they said “where’s the watches” and “do you want me to stab you?”‘
She agreed with a suggestion that it was a Rambo-style knife, while Cavendish said in his evidence that it ‘wasn’t a knife you have in a kitchen’.
‘It was black and had holes in it’, he said, adding: ‘It was a weapon.’
Mrs Cavendish said that at the time her husband had been ‘out of hospital for four days maybe’ following a cycling crash which had left him with three broken ribs and a tear to his left lung.
She added: ‘They were very specific about a watch. I tried to explain that actually we were broken into a couple of years previously, everything has been taken.’
Her husband then showed the intruders where the safe was, the court heard.
‘It was becoming more frantic as they weren’t getting what they wanted. They kept saying “there must be cash, there must be jewellery”‘, she added.
Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish (pictured competing in the Tour de Pologne in Poland last year) cut his feet on smashed glass following the break-in
Mark Cavendish celebrates after winning the Men’s Elite race in Castle Douglas during the 2022 British National Road Championships road race
Mrs Cavendish told the court that the intruders did not take her engagement ring or wedding ring or a necklace, though they had said ‘show me your wrists, as if maybe I was wearing a watch’.
The court heard that the men turned the bedroom ‘upside down’ and that when they left, Cavendish pressed a panic alarm to alert a private security firm and the police.
Jurors were told that two further men, Jo Jobson, from Plaistow, east London, and George Goddard, from Loughton in Essex, have been named as suspects in the case but have not been apprehended.
In a statement following the conviction today Cavendish and his wife Peta said that ‘nothing can ever erase what our family went through’.
The statement added: ‘Reliving our family’s experience from that night in November 2021 has been an incredibly difficult experience.
‘What happened that night is something that no family should ever have to go through.
‘Although nothing can ever erase what our family went through, there is now some comfort that two men who broke into our family home and stole from us, assaulted Mark and terrified our children are now convicted and will be facing what we hope will be an appropriate sentence for their actions and we hope moves some steps in preventing this horror happening to another innocent family.’
Speaking outside court, Detective Inspector Tony Atkin, of Essex Police made an appeal to camera for Jobson and Goddard to hand themselves in, adding: ‘You can only hide for so long.’
He said: ‘Although I can’t go into significant detail, we are following a number of lines of inquiry in order to locate them.
‘The actions we believe they are responsible for cannot go unpunished.’
