I have contact with my baby three times a week. That’s it
TEACHER ACCUSED OF HAVING SEX WITH PUPILS BREAKS DOWN AFTER REVEALING DAUGHTER WAS ‘TAKEN AWAY’ FROM HER
A TEACHER accused of having sex with two pupils – including one who got her pregnant – broke down whilst giving evidence after revealing their baby girl was ‘taken away’ from her.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, wept as she revealed to jurors that the baby was taken from her ‘24 hours after being born’ and now sees her ‘three times a week for three hours.’
Ms Joynes denies six counts of sexual activity with a child, and is on trial at Manchester Crown Court.
The allegations concern two teenage boys – who cannot be named for legal reasons – she met while she was a teacher at a Greater Manchester school.
Jurors previously heard Ms Joynes allegedly groomed one pupil with a Trafford Centre shopping trip, before having sex with him.
She then fell pregnant by another teenager, the court has heard.
Giving evidence for the first time, Ms Joynes repeatedly denied having any sexual contact with either boy when they were underage.
Of the first complainant, Boy A, she said that she noticed he was ‘pushing boundaries’ and ‘getting a bit more flirtatious.’
Ms Joynes said Boy A continuously asked for her number, and during a lesson she gave him nine digits of it, and he later guessed the last two. She admitted chatting with him over messages the following day, and the conversation continued after he added her on Snapchat and she accepted, jurors heard.
When asked by her barrister, Michael O’Brien ‘is it normal for a teacher to be engaging in messaging with a student?’ she said: “Absolutely not, as a professional teacher I should have never engaged in that. I have to take accountability for that.”
Ms Joynes said that an arrangement was made for them to go to the Trafford Centre, after Boy A had commented on her ‘Snapchat story’ about a previous trip, saying “When are you going to take me then?”
She said: “At the time I agreed, and we said if we were late back, he would have to stay at mine,” adding that Boy A was concerned about his parents finding out.
They both went to the Trafford Centre the following day, during which she bought him a £345 Gucci belt from Selfridges.
“I shouldn’t have done this, but I just agreed and bought the belt and I should never have done that,” Ms Joynes said.
She said they went back to her flat, and after chatting for a short while Boy A asked ‘how many people she had slept with.’
“I thought it was a strange question and said that, and then said ‘probably not as many as you,’” she told jurors. “I thought he obviously thought something was going to happen and we had a discussion that there was nothing going to happen.”
She said that she had offered to take him home, but he declined, and she told him to sleep on the sofa.
When asked why his DNA had been found on her bedsheets, she said she had left him alone in her apartment after going to work the next morning, adding: “It definitely wasn’t with me. At some point he must have gone into my bedroom and something happened.”
Of Boy B, she denied that any sexual contact happened until after he turned 16, stating she was suspended from teaching at the time.
She said a friendship developed, and went on to describe him as her ‘best friend.’ Ms Joynes said they would go on walks together, that they would message on Snapchat and she would help him with his mock GCSEs.
The defendant said Boy B made some sexualised comments towards her when he was drunk, but said she would laugh them off.
She said it wasn’t until after his birthday that he messaged her stating: “I’ve left school now,” with a winky face emoji. He later went round to her apartment after she had received notice that she had been dismissed, and during an emotional conversation they had sex, she told jurors.
After this the pair entered into a relationship. They later discovered she was pregnant.
The court heard that she gave birth to their baby girl in January this year, but following an emergency court hearing, she was taken away.
Sobbing, she said: “At the moment I have contact with her three times a week for three hours and that’s it.”
Ms Joynes, of Pensby Road, Wirral, denies two counts of sexual activity with Boy A; two counts of sexual activity with Boy B; and two counts of sexual activity with Boy B while being a person in a position of trust. ● Proceeding