Jury retires to consider verdicts in Mark Cavendish robbery trial

Jurors have begun deliberations in the trial of two men accused of robbing Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish and his wife Peta.

Prosecutors said balaclava-clad intruders broke into Cavendish’s home in Ongar, Essex, while he was sleeping upstairs with his wife – with their three-year-old child also in bed.

Two Richard Mille watches, valued at £400,000 and £300,000, were among the items stolen in the knife raid carried out at around 2.30am on 27 November 2021.

Romario Henry, 31, of Bell Green, Lewisham, south-east London, and Oludewa Okorosobo, 28, of Flaxman Road, Camberwell, south London, deny two counts of theft.

They are accused of robbing Cavendish of a watch, a phone and a safe, and of robbing the athlete’s wife of a watch, a phone and a Louis Vuitton suitcase.

Judge David Turner KC summed up the evidence in the case to jurors at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday, the 13th day of the trial, before retiring to consider their verdicts.

Ali Sesay, 28, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, admitted two counts of theft at an earlier hearing, and the trial was previously told his DNA was found on Ms Cavendish’s phone, which was taken and found outside the property.

Two other men, Jo Jobson, from Plaistow, east London, and George Goddard, from Loughton in Essex, have been named as suspects but have not been arrested.