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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Tristan Kirk

Rebecca Joynes: Teacher facing prison after being found guilty of having sex with two pupils

Teacher Rebecca Joynes is facing years in prison after being found guilty of having sex with two pupils at the school where she worked.

The 30-year-old maths teacher has been dubbed a “predator” after she had sex with one of the boys and then started a relationship with the second when she was out on police bail.

At the conclusion of a two-week trial at Manchester crown court, Joynes was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with a child and two counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.

She faces a prison term when she is sentenced in July.

Joynes, a teacher at a Manchester high school, arranged for one of the pupils, known as Boy A, to stay overnight at her home in October 2021.

She took him to the Trafford Centre and bought him a £345 belt, and afterwards they had sex at her flat in Salford Quays.

When the activity came to light, she was suspended from her job and released on bail, and then struck up another sexual relationship with a pupil, known as Boy B.

Joynes took his virginity and ended up giving birth to a child boy B had fathered, jurors were told.

Joynes closed her eyes and grimaced as the guilty verdicts were delivered against her on Friday afternoon. She then began to visibly shake in the dock.

Her mother and father, sat in the public gallery, made no reaction but yards away the parents of the boys stifled cheers as Joynes was convicted.

Judge Kate Cornell ordered reports on Joynes before sentencing, and agreed to give her bail for the next six weeks.

“There’s a baby in this case who has done nothing wrong and is entirely innocent of all wrongdoing and you will obviously want to see her before the sentence is passed, I do understand that”, she said.

“But you must be under no illusion what’s going to happen on the fourth of July.”

The court heard Joynes joined the school in 2018 as part of the Teach First teacher recruitment scheme after studying for a sports and exercise science degree.

She said she had undergone a messy break-up after the end of a nine-year relationship, struggled during the Covid pandemic, and was lonely when she became “flattered” by the attention of teenage schoolboys.

Joynes, referred to as ‘Bunda Becky’ by the boys, gave boy A most of her mobile number and he guessed the missing digit, before they connected on Snapchat and he sent her flirty texts with the pair agreeing to meet in secret.

Boy A told his mother his schoolteacher was “well fit” and all the boys fancied her, which she dismissed as a “typical teenage” boy’s comment.

Two weeks later the youngster lied to her that he was staying over at a friend’s house to play Fifa after school finished on Friday.

Instead Joynes picked him up near his home in her Audi A1, took him to the Trafford Centre.

On the way Joynes laughed and said, “Oh shut up!” when boy A, referring to driving, said, ‘I’m not old enough”.

Back at her flat they kissed then had sex twice, Joynes telling the boy, “No one had better find out”.

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

However, boy A had taken a photo on his Snapchat and rumours began to circulate as police received a tip-off.

Come 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.

Joynes was suspended and she was set free on police bail, with a condition not to contact anyone under the age of 18.

She moved back in with her parents, and told the court boy B messaged her on Snapchat asking how she was. “I genuinely thought he cared,” she said.

Prosecutor Joe Allman said Joynes had made a “naked attempt to garner sympathy” from the jury by having a pink baby’s bonnet visibly tucked into her trouser front belonging to the child fathered by boy B.

The trial saw flirty Snapchat messages sent to both boys by Joynes.

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

Joynes denied all allegations of sexual activity with Boy A, and insisted arelationship developed with Boy B while she was suspended from her job and only became sexual after she was dismissed and he had left school at 16.

During her evidence, a tearful Joynes 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 denied under-age sex.

She 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.

She denied six counts of sexual activity with a child, including two while being a person in a position of trust, but was convicted on all counts on Friday.

Sentencing will take place on July 4.

Jane Wilson, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West, said: “Rebecca Joynes is a sexual predator.

“She was entrusted with the responsibility of teaching and safeguarding children. She abused her position to groom and ultimately sexually exploit schoolboys. Her behaviour has had a lasting impact on them.”

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