Thug, 31, is found guilty of robbing Olympic bike star Mark Cavendish and his wife Peta after stealing £700,000 worth of watches in terrifying knife raid at their home

• Balaclava-clad intruders broke into home in Ongar, Essex, on November 27, 2021
• Romario Henry, 31, has today been found guilty of the knifepoint raid
• Items stolen included Richard Mille watches valued at £400,000 and £300,000

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

CCTV image taken from the property of Mark Cavendish showing suspects leaving through the open front gate after the robbery

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. 

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. 

Mrs Cavendish told the trial that one of the intruders ‘dragged’ her husband ‘from his feet and started punching him’. 

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. 

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

She said that, when she went downstairs after the intruders had left, she saw that a patio door had been broken through and her husband had cut his feet on the smashed glass. 

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. 

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