Dame Deborah James’ husband has found love again with a Swiss investment banker three years after the bowel cancer campaigner died, MailOnline can reveal.
When Sebastien Bowen was pictured at the weekend with a beautiful ‘mystery’ woman, friends of his late wife wished him well.
Deborah had, after all, told her husband he should ‘move on’ after she was gone.
Now we can reveal the woman with whom Mr Bowen, 45, was pictured holding hands in west London is Susann Aulbach, whose most recent role was head of investor relations at a London finance firm.
Ms Aulbach, who lives in an £800,000 flat in Chelsea, turns 39 this month and it is thought that the pair may have been celebrating her birthday when they were spotted enjoying a long, leisurely lunch last week at The River Cafe in Hammersmith.
The River Cafe is the fashionable restaurant where Jamie Oliver began his career and the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Nigella Lawson have dined.
A passerby said: ‘They looked like they were very much in love. It was very sweet. For anyone who was inspired by Dame Deborah’s attitude to life, it was really heartening to see her husband looking happy again.’
Ms Aulbach, who grew up in Switzerland, wore an elegant red dress with black sandals and sunglasses as she and Mr Bowen, a banker at private equity firm Pomona Capital, basked in the sunshine while they strolled on the towpath beside the Thames.
Last December, we revealed that Mr Bowen was dipping his toe in the dating scene.
Friends said he had been on several dates as he attempted to rebuild his life following his wife’s death in June 2022.
In the months before she passed, she was awarded a damehood personally by Prince William, who visited Deborah at her parents’ home in Woking Surrey, where she was living.
A source said: ‘It’s very early days for Seb and he’s taking things very slowly. Deborah is going to be a tough act to follow as they had a fantastic marriage and made a great couple. But Seb feels the time has come for him to move on, as Deborah wanted him to.’
Dame Deborah, who called herself ‘Bowelbabe’, raised more than £11million for cancer research.
She was known for her frankness about dealing with her aggressive bowel cancer, which she shared on the BBC Radio 5 Live show You, Me And The Big C. She described Mr Bowen as a ‘very eligible bachelor’ and knew he would attract a lot of female attention after her death.
She said: ‘I have given him strict instructions: I want him to move on.
‘He’s a handsome man, I’m like, ‘Don’t be taken for a ride, don’t marry a bimbo, find someone else who can make you laugh like we did.’
She also joked there were a couple of people she didn’t want him to hook up with and if he did, ‘I would do my damned hardest to haunt him’.
Mr Bowen met his wife, with whom he had two children, in 2005 and they married three years later.
In 2023, her mother Heather said: ‘Deborah will be a hard act to follow, but he has our blessing.’
