Mark Cavendish has said “nothing can ever erase what our family went through” after a man was convicted for his role in a robbery at the Olympic cyclist’s family home.

Cavendish had a “Rambo-style” knife held to his throat during the terrifying ordeal at his home in Ongar, Essex, a trial at Chelmsford crown court was told.

Balaclava-wearing intruders broke into the property as he slept upstairs with his wife, Peta, who told the trial she had to cover her three-year-old child, who was also in the bed, with a duvet so they could not see what was happening.

Two Richard Mille watches, valued at £400,000 and £300,000, were among the items taken in the raid at about 2.30am on 27 November 2021.

Romario Henry, 31, of Lewisham, south-east London denied two counts of robbery but was found guilty on both counts by a majority verdict of 10 jurors to two after 14 and a half hours of deliberation.

His co-defendant Oludewa Okorosobo, 28, of Camberwell, south London, denied two counts of robbery and was cleared by the jury.

Okorosobo had loaned his mobile phone, which connected with cell masts in the Ongar area on the night, to a man who has admitted robbery.

Okorosobo said he did not go to the Cavendish address and was not with his phone, but had let Ali Sesay borrow it to use a navigation app.

Henry, who showed no visible reaction as he was convicted, will be sentenced on 7 February along with Sesay, of Rainham, Kent, who admitted two counts of robbery at an earlier hearing.

Cavendish and his wife said in a statement released through police that “nothing can ever erase what our family went through”.

They said: “Reliving our family’s experience from that night in November 2021 has been an incredibly difficult experience. What happened that night is something that no family should ever have to go through.

“Although nothing can ever erase what our family went through, there is now some comfort that two men who broke into our family home and stole from us, assaulted Mark and terrified our children are now convicted and will be facing what we hope will be an appropriate sentence for their actions and we hope moves some steps in preventing this horror happening to another innocent family.”

They added: “We have worked and continue to work incredibly hard as a family to move on from that night as best we can, to make it a distant memory.

“It has been immensely difficult and in fact there have been times when it has felt impossible, but we will not let this event and these men’s actions define our family.

“We are moving forward together as a family.”

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

She told the trial that one of the intruders “dragged” Cavendish “from his feet and started punching him”.

One had her husband in a headlock, she said, adding: “One of them held a large black knife to his throat and they said: ‘Where’s the watches’ and ‘Do you want me to stab you?’”

Jurors were told that two other men, Jo Jobson, from Plaistow, east London, and George Goddard, from Loughton in Essex, have been named as suspects in the case but have not been apprehended.

Jobson was 25 and Goddard 26 at the time of a police appeal last March.