Men who stabbed Mark Cavendish jailed

Mark and Peta Cavendish – Yui Mok

Two men have been jailed for stealing valuable watches from Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish and his wife Peta in a knifepoint robbery, prompting them to consider selling their home amid “persistent fear”.

Intruders wearing a balaclava broke into Mr Cavendish’s home in Ongar, Essex, as he was sleeping upstairs with his wife, the trial at Chelmsford Crown Court was told.

Ms Cavendish, who fought back tears at Tuesday’s sentencing, said the robbery had “turned a loving family home into a constant reminder of threat and fear”.

Reading her personal testimony from the victim on the witness stand, she said they “may be able to sell the property due to ongoing fear,” but in the current economic climate, doing so could cause “significant losses.”

Ms Cavendish said she was “in the early stages of pregnancy” at the time of the robbery and a time when she “should have been happy and excited was then turned into a time of stress and worry”.

Peta Cavendish outside Chelmsford Crown Court, Essex, on Tuesday – Joe Giddens

She told the trial that she covered her three-year-old child, who was sharing a bed with her, with a duvet so they couldn’t see what was happening.

Two Richard Mille watches valued at £400,000 and £300,000 were among the items seized in the raid at around 2:30am on 27 November 2021.

Romario Henry, 31, of Bell Green, Lewisham, south-east London, denied two counts of robbery but was found guilty at an earlier trial and sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday.

Ali Sesay, 28, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, admitted to two robberies and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

“No ordinary burglary”

Judge David Turner KC, who convicted the two men, said: “This was a serious organized crime. This was no ordinary burglary by opportunistic amateurs.

“This was a planned, targeted, orchestrated, reckless insult directed at an internationally renowned athlete and his wife who happened to be brand ambassadors for exceptionally valuable Richard Mille watches.”

The trial was told Sesay’s DNA was found on Ms Cavendish’s phone, which was stolen and found outside the property.

The charge was that the accused men robbed Mr Cavendish of a watch, a telephone and a safe and his wife’s watch, a telephone and a suitcase.

Ms Cavendish, who like her husband was naked during the robbery, had told jurors she heard a noise in the night that woke her and went downstairs to investigate.

She said she could see “figures of men in balaclavas running to the bottom of the stairs” and that she believed there were “between three and five” people.

She told the court she ran back into the bedroom and shouted “Back” or “Rin” to her husband, who failed to set off a panic alarm.

Ms Cavendish said one of the intruders “pulled Mr Cavendish off his feet and started beating him”.

One had her husband in a headlock, she said, adding, “One of them put a big black knife to his throat and they said, ‘Where are the watches?’ and ‘do you want me to stab you?’

She agreed with the suggestion that it was a Rambo-style knife.

Ms Cavendish said her husband was “maybe four days out of hospital” at the time after a bicycle accident that left him with three broken ribs and a ruptured left lung.

She said that as she went down the stairs after the intruders left, she saw a patio door smashed in and Mr Cavendish cut his feet on the broken glass.

Officers used a chainsaw to arrest him

Edward Renvoize, the prosecutor, said Henry had prior convictions in 2012 for supplying drugs and in 2013 for perverting the course of justice by “assisting in the burn-out of a vehicle used in a gang homicide”.

Archangelo Power, speaking for Henry, said the defendant’s brother was murdered three and a half months before the robbery and that it “had a significant impact on the defendant’s psychological state.”

Mr Power said Henry was “close to committing suicide”.

Mr Renvoize said Sesay had admitted six unrelated firearms offenses for possession of two guns and ammunition at a previous hearing when a previous judgment had banned him from possession of such items.

The prosecutor said Sesay was arrested at an address in Thornton Heath, south London on December 16, 2021 and officers “had to use a chainsaw to gain entry” and saw objects which later turned out to be firearms , were thrown out of a window to a neighbor’s garden.

The judge jailed Sesay for eight years on the gun charges, which followed the 12-year sentence for the robbery, making a total of 20 years.

The judge said Sesay had previously been convicted of supplying cocaine and heroin in 2017.

Graeme Molloy told Sesay the defendant was “really sorry” for his role in the robbery and had admitted his involvement.

Speaking about the firearms offences, Mr Molloy said Sesay claimed the guns were not his and that he threw them out the window.

Mr Molloy said the guns were “loaded but the cartridge was not in the firing chamber”.

The jury was told that two other men, Jo Jobson of Plaistow in east London and George Goddard of Loughton in Essex, had been named as suspects in the robbery but had not been arrested.

Jobson was 25 and Goddard 26 when police appealed last March.

Oludewa Okorosobo, 28, of Flaxman Road, Camberwell, south London, denied two robberies and was acquitted by a jury after a trial.

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