Jury retires to consider verdicts in Mark Cavendish robbery trial

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

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

Two Richard Mille watches, valued at £400,000 and £300,000, were among the items taken in the knifepoint raid at around 2.30am on November 27 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 robbery.

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, which was the 13th day of the trial, before they retired to consider their verdicts.

Ali Sesay, 28, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, admitted two counts of robbery at an earlier hearing, and the trial was previously told that his DNA was found on Mrs 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 not apprehended.