19-05-2025
Three men who stole watches worth £750,000 from cycling star Mark Cavendish told to pay back money or face extra six years each in jail
Three men who were jailed following a terrifying knifepoint robbery at the home of Olympic cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish were today ordered to pay back more than £750,000 or face an extra six years in jail each.
Sir Mark was beaten and threatened to be stabbed in front of his wife Peta and his three-year-old son during the violent raid, when the masked gang broke in at the dead of night.
They are believed to have been after a £2 million sapphire Richard Mille watch the athlete was loaned for an awards ceremony.
Instead, they made off with two other watches by the same upmarket firm worth £400,000 and £350,000.
Romario Henry, 34, of Lewisham, south-east London, and Ali Seasay, 30, of Rainham, Kent, were eventually caught and sentenced to 15 years and 12 years respectively in 2023 for two counts of robbery at the family house in Ongar, Essex.
A third man, Jo Jobson, 28, of no fixed address later handed himself in to police and was also given 15 years inside for the same charges.
They faced further court proceedings today over the stolen goods, which are still missing, and also include three mobile phones worth around £2,300 and a Louis Vuitton suitcase valued at £2,200.
Judge Alexander Mills, sitting at Chelmsford Crown Court for the Proceeds of Crime Act hearing, said the owed a total of £754,525 and must repay it by August or have the time added to their jail terms.
The robbers took items including two Richard Mille watches with a combined value of £750,000
He said he was satisfied the defendants were 'in it together' and had jointly obtained the value of the stolen property, adding 'any defendant can pay off this order to relieve the others of the responsibility of doing so'.
Judge Mills added he 'did not accept it's inevitable they [the watches] were sold' as they were 'not depreciating goods but goods that act as a store of wealth'.
The amount owed was reduced by a Mercedes car valued at £1,000 that was seized from Sesay and £24,740 in cash found at a property where he had been living.
An unspecified amount was secured from Jobson's NatWest bank account.
The judge said these should be used to pay £1,897 compensation to Sir Mark, £3,359 to his wife, and the remainder to the watch company who were 'the losers of the value of the watches'.
Model Mrs Cavendish, who was pregnant with the couple's fifth child at the time of the raid on November 27, 2021, went to investigate a noise downstairs as her husband was recovering from three broken ribs and a torn lung following a cycling accident.
She raced back to the bedroom as she saw 'figures running towards her'.
Describing the scene during Henry's trial prosecutor Edward Renvoize said: 'Mrs Cavendish got into the bedroom and Mr Cavendish got hold of a panic alarm.
'Two assailants jumped on him and punched him and asked him to turn the alarm off. One individual produced a knife and threatened to stab him in front of his children.'
Three men in balaclavas in the bedroom demanded Cavendish open his safe and he was 'subjected to more violence' when he was unable to access it as the batteries for the keypad had gone flat.
His wife, who hid their son under the covers to stop him seeing what was happening, said one of the men brandished a 'Rambo-style' knife and snatched her phone when she tried to call police.
Mr Renvoize described the raid to jurors as a 'well-orchestrated and executed, planned invasion of a home of well-known individuals with the intention of grabbing high-value timepieces'.
One of the intruder's took Mrs Cavendish's mobile phone and it was later found outside their property, which he said was a 'significant error in what was an otherwise carefully executed plan'.
DNA recovered from the phone was attributed to Ali Sesay and police then 'traced a phone attributed to Mr Sesay', using its data to identify the phone numbers of other people involved in the offence.'
Mrs Cavendish previously revealed she and her husband were considering selling the house because the robbery had ' turned a loving family home into a constant reminder of threat and fear '.
Sesay admitted the offences, while Henry and Jobson were both convicted following trials.
Judge Mills said the defendants could apply for an extension to the three-month period to repay the money.
