An aristocrat sexually abused a six-year-old girl, a court has found, and was also accused of attempting to rape a woman who were both overnight guests at one of Britain’s most famous stately homes.
Simon Howard (65), was discharged yesterday after a brain injury he sustained in a recent fall at his home rendered him unfit for trial.
Justice might have been possible but for what the judge described as an ‘unacceptable’ three-year delay by the prosecution in bringing the case to court. Howard’s ‘genuine’ fall at home happened two years after the first victim went to police.
Due to ‘irreparable’ brain injuries he could not stand trial or be given a custodial sentence.

Aristocrat Simon Howard, 65, sexually abused a six-year-old girl, a court has found, and was also accused of attempting to rape a woman who were both overnight guests at one of Britain’s most famous stately homes

The incidents were said to have happened at Castle Howard, the North Yorkshire stately home used for the filming of hit Netflix series Bridgerton (Pictured)
The two incidents occurred at Castle Howard, a North Yorkshire stately residence used to film Bridgerton as well as both film and TV versions of Brideshead Revisited.
York Crown Court’s last month finding of fact trial concluded with Howard being found guilty of sexual assaulting the girl in mid-1980s.
The jury heard harrowing evidence from the victim, now a mother in her 40s, and Howard’s subsequent denial to police. In a victim impact statement read in court yesterday the woman, who reported the incident to her mother at the time, said she felt the sexual abuse on her was ‘swept under the carpet’. An earlier court hearing was told her family did nothing because of Howard’s social standing.
Following hearing about child abuse charges, the victim was able to come forward as an alleged attempt rape victim.
She had previously told close family members how Howard had tried to rape her in her bed at night in the mid-2000s, but was ‘advised and encouraged to conclude’ it would be a ‘traumatic experience’ to report him.
After the prosecution determined that it wasn’t in the public interest for the case to be tried again, the allegation was kept on file. After consulting with the complainant, the decision was made.
In her statement detailing Howard’s alleged sex attack she said she was staying overnight at Castle Howard when he came into her bedroom.
She said: ‘I was woken up by being shaken and opened my eyes to see him kneeling at the side of my bed and staring at my face. He wanted to ask what time I wanted breakfast.’
She said he then ‘just launched himself on top of me pinning me to the bed and I just couldn’t believe it. I said: “just get off Simon, get off, what are you doing?”’ She said he sexually assaulted her and asked her to perform a sex act. He was trying to rape his wife, she believed.

Howard (left) pictured with his second wife Rebecca Howard (right), who he has two children with, outside Castle Howard
The woman fled to the bathroom and was pursued by Howard who allegedly ‘pounced’ on her again when she came out. The court heard when she was signing the visitors’ book to leave Howard allegedly said: ‘Shouldn’t you have said thank you for not having me.’ The court was told there was no evidence she signed the book.
It is believed that the child was sexabused by Howard around twenty years before. Howard, accused of sexually assaulting and asking for the indecent acts from the little girl when she went into Howard’s bedroom to search for his first wife. She has since passed away.
In her interview with police, the victim said her life had been ‘haunted’ by the events of that morning. She said: ‘The true horror of what had happened to me was part of my childhood, part of my growing up. It was a wrong thing and a rather confusing thing to have happened and I never understood it.’ One of the factors that made her come forward decades later was Howard’s support of an NSPCC Christmas Fair, which she found ‘shocking’.
Howard was interview in July 2018. He remembered the event. Prosecutor Michael Smith said: ‘He said he woke up to find a child asleep in his bed.
He said he turned over and went back to sleep.’ He said he did nothing wrong, although he admitted the child’s mother accused him of touching the girl.
In her victim impact statement outlined by Mr Smith, the victim said it affected her relationship with her mother and ‘lost trust and confidence in the adults that should have been protecting her’.
She said ‘nobody was able to speak up for her at the time and the abuse was swept under the carpet, something not spoken about, and it felt to her like it was her shame being covered up and not his’.
Passing sentence yesterday, Judge Sean Morris said the only option open to him by law was an ‘absolute discharge’.

Howard stepped down from running Castle Howard (pictured) in 2015 amid an apparent falling out with his older brother Nicholas, 68, who took over and moved in to the magnificent ancestral home with his family
Howard was told by him that he would have to automatically sign for five years the Sex Offenders Register.
Howard did not attend court, nor was he able to view proceedings through the Internet. Howard married his first wife Annette ‘Scruff’ Howard in 1983. Annette, aged 71, died in December last year after a 16-year marriage.
Howard had two children and married again after having two more with Rebecca. In 2015, Howard quit Castle Howard following an apparent fallout with Nicholas, 68. Nicholas took the reins and moved into Castle Howard with his family.
Simon Howard moved into Welham Hall, which is a country home about ten miles from his hometown. But the separation of the Howard family was clearly an emotional one.
Mrs Howard said in an interview in 2018: ‘My husband was born there, my children grew up there and I felt proud and privileged to be part of its history. We had so many happy times, but all those memories have been tarnished.’
This property is his ancestral home and was constructed in the early 1700s by Sir John Vanbrugh. Prior to the pandemic, around 250,000 visitors came annually from all over the globe.
Few of these great many admirers of the architecture, the follies in the beautiful grounds and the television and film fame of Castle Howard will have had any notion of what went on behind the stately home’s doors.
After the court hearing, his wife Rebecca Howard said in a statement: ‘If this case had come to court before my husband’s horrific accident last year or even while his first wife was still alive, I have no doubts at all that the outcome of these allegations would have found in his favour.’