LONDON, 7 Feb. (dpa/EP) –
Two men have been jailed for stealing valuable watches from British cyclist Mark Cavendish and his wife Peta in a knife-point assault at their home that has caused them to consider selling their home due to “continuing fear”.
The intruders, wearing balaclavas, broke into Cavendish’s home in Ongar, Essex, England, while he was sleeping upstairs with his wife Peta, their trial at Chelmsford Crown Court said.
Visibly nervous and fighting back tears, Mrs Cavendish said Tuesday the robbery had “turned a loving family home into a constant reminder of threat and fear”. Reading her personal statement from the dais, she said they “may sell the property due to continued fear,” but in the current economic climate this could cause “considerable losses.”
Cavendish’s wife also stated that she was “in the early stages of pregnancy” at the time of the robbery, and that a time when she should have been “happy and excited” turned “into a period of stress and worry”. As she testified at trial, she covered her three-year-old son, who was in bed with her, with a duvet so he couldn’t see what was happening.
Two Richard Mille watches, valued at 400,000 and 300,000 pounds sterling, were some of the objects stolen in the assault carried out around 2:30 in the morning on November 27, 2021.
Romario Henry, 31, from Bell Green, Lewisham (southeast London), denied two charges of theft but was found guilty after an earlier trial and sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison. Ali Sesay, 28, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, admitted to two counts of robbery and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Judge David Turner sentenced the two men. “This is a serious offense of organized crime. It was not an ordinary domestic robbery perpetrated by opportunistic fans. It was a planned, selective, orchestrated and ruthless crime directed against an internationally famous athlete and his wife, ambassadors of the Richard Mille watch brand, of exceptional value,” he said.
At trial it was said that Sesay’s DNA was found on the Cavendish wife’s phone, which was seized and found outside the property. The defendants robbed Cavendish of a watch, a telephone and a safe, and his wife a watch, a telephone and a suitcase.
