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RICHARD EDEN: Marks & Spencer heiress Rebecca Sieff, 57, embarks on new romance after tragic death of husband Simon Howard
She was a hair's breadth from death when, aged 26, the helicopter she was travelling in span out of control and crashed in an Oxfordshire field.
Ever since then, the life of Marks & Spencer heiress Rebecca Sieff has been defined by extravagant swings of fortune, with moments of triumph, like marrying Simon Howard at his family seat, the unsurpassable Castle Howard – backdrop for both Brideshead Revisited and Bridgerton – alternating with setbacks, none bleaker than Simon's death at a time when he was unfit to challenge grievous charges against him in court. A sultry beauty blessed with what admirers call the 'wow' factor, she has had an electrifying effect on men for decades – as Simon discovered towards the end of his childless, 16-year marriage to Anette, known as 'Scruff'. He suffered a brain haemorrhage after falling down stairs and was too ill to attend court where he was found guilty, 'on the facts', of sexually assaulting a girl in 1984.
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