Teacher Rebecca Joynes found guilty of having sex with two pupils
A maths teacher has been found guilty of having sex with two teenage pupils, one of whom fathered her child.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, took one of the boys shopping and bought him a £350 Gucci belt before having sex with him at her apartment in Salford, Greater Manchester, when he was 15 years old.
Joynes was arrested and suspended from her job after the boy’s allegations came to light.
While on bail and still suspended, she then began a relationship with another 15-year-old boy, later becoming pregnant by him, a court heard.
In both cases she exchanged flirty Snapchat messages with the boys before meeting up with them.
The second boy, who can be named only as Boy B, said the relationship began with kissing and progressed to full sex when he was 16.
Jurors heard how, while discussing her pregnancy, Joynes told the boy she would ‘harm herself or kill herself’ if he ended the relationship or that he would be ‘responsible’ if their break-up led to a miscarriage.
During her trial she was accused of a ‘naked attempt to garner sympathy’ from the jury when she appeared with a pink baby bonnet belonging to their baby visibly tucked into her trousers.
She told jurors the baby was taken away from her hours after she gave birth and she is now only allowed to see it three times a week.
The 30-year-old denied having sex with Boy A and insisted she only began having sex with Boy B after he had turned 16 and left school, which would have been legal.
By this time, she had been sacked from her job.
Joynes admitted letting boy A into her apartment and swapping messages with him but insisted she only did so because she was ‘lonely’ and ‘liked the attention’ after a previous nine-year relationship ended during the pandemic.
The court heard boys in her class told her she was ‘so sexy’ and nicknamed her ‘Bunda Becky’ in a slang-based reference to her bottom.
She wept as she told jurors: ‘I let my guard down. I caved into the attention he was giving me.’
Her defence barrister, Michael O’Brien, accused Boy A of lying so that he wouldn’t ‘lose face’ to his mates after bragging that he was ‘going to shag’ Joynes.
O’Brien claimed Boy B and Joynes were in a misguided but ‘perfectly legal relationship’, and that the teenager chose to ‘twist the dates’ and ‘put the boot in’ after it ended.
But prosecutors said that, if Joynes were a man and her victims were girls, there would have been ‘not one shred of sympathy’ for the defendant and no ‘obscene’ discussion of how the victims were ‘up for it’.
A jury found the teacher guilty of six charges of sexual activity with the boys, including two while she was in a position of trust.
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