Teacher found guilty of sexual activity with a child

UK

A teacher has been found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with a child following a two-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Rebecca Joynes, 30, was also found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.

Joynes had denied she had sex with one schoolboy, boy A, and insisted in court that her relationship with a second teenager, boy B, only began once he had left school and she had been fired from her job – so it wasn’t illegal.

Jurors heard that both boys sent Joynes flirty Snapchat messages, and hid the interactions from their parents.

She took boy A, who lied about going to a friend’s house after school finished on Friday, shopping and bought him a £350 Gucci belt before they went back to her flat in Salford Quays, where they had sex twice, the court was told.

Joynes told the boy, “No one had better find out”.

The teenager’s semen was recovered from her bedsheets by police.

The next day the boy’s mother noticed a love-bite on her son’s neck which he dismissed as, “nothing”.

However, rumours began circulating and on the Monday morning officers were at the school along with boy A’s “distraught” mother who stormed into reception after being told her son had spent the night with a teacher.

Boy B said sexual activity began when he was 15, with kissing and full sex when he was 16 – and still a pupil.

Joynes was already suspended from her high school job and on bail for alleged sexual activity with boy A, when she allegedly kissed and fondled the second, boy B, after sending him a photo of her bottom wearing just a thong, the jury heard.

She told the jury she had ruined her “dream job” with stupid “mistakes” by meeting up with the two teenagers and having them back at her flat, but had denied under-age sex.

Joynes admitted she had come out of a nine-year relationship, was lonely and flattered by the attention.

During the trial, she appeared in court with a pink baby’s bonnet visibly tucked into her trousers.

It belonged to the child she had with boy B.

Joynes wept as she told jurors the baby she had with boy B was taken away from her hours after giving birth and she now has only limited access, three times a week.

Talking about the baby bonnet, prosecutor Joe Allman told the jury in his closing speech: “That was a pretty naked attempt to garner your sympathy.”

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