‘I liked the attention but did not sleep with my pupils’
Teacher insists she did not have sex with the teenage father of her child until she was suspended from job
‘I think I was obviously lonely and I liked the attention at the time, which sounds awful’
A MATHS teacher said she liked the attention of students after “struggling” with a break-up during the pandemic but insisted that she did not have sex with any pupils while she was teaching them, a court heard.
Rebecca Joynes denies four charges of sexual activity with two teenagers, and two counts of sexual activity while being a person in a position of trust.
The 30-year-old was arrested and suspended from her job in October 2021 over allegations of sexual activity with Boy A, aged 15, Manchester Crown Court heard. She denies any sexual contact with the boy.
The teacher admitted to meeting him after he correctly guessed her mobile phone number during a maths lesson.
She bought the teenager a £345 Gucci belt at the Trafford Centre before taking him back to her Salford Quays apartment, but denies his claim that they had sex.
Ms Joynes claimed the boy’s behaviour had become increasingly “flirtatious” towards her but she admitted she should never have allowed him to start messaging her.
“I was really stupid and shouldn’t have done it,” she said.
She said she had agreed to let him stay over at her apartment after the shopping trip but insisted he sleep on the couch.
“I tried to explain I had been in a nine-year-relationship and had really struggled with the break-up and I was not the type of person who goes around sleeping with people,” she said.
When questioned by her own barrister Michael O’brien, Joynes said she would change “everything” about how she behaved, but claimed she had “let [her] guard down”.
She added: “I caved in to the attention he was giving me.
“I struggled massively over the Covid period. I think I was obviously lonely and I liked the attention at the time, which sounds awful.”
Ms Joynes was on conditional bail which banned her from unsupervised contact with under-18s when she allegedly had sex with Boy B, 16.
It is alleged they first had sex after the boy had gone to her flat in February 2022.
Ms Joynes denied this but admitted they did eventually have sex after she was dismissed from her job in July 2022. She said she was “curious” about Boy B contacting her on Snapchat and they “opened up” to each other as friends.
“I genuinely believed that he cared,” she said.
The jury heard she later became pregnant with the 16-year-old’s child. She told him during a “date-night” at her flat when she presented him with a babygrow, the court heard. She gave birth to a girl in January.
A tearful Ms Joynes then told the jury that court proceedings had seen her newborn daughter “taken off me 24 hours after she was born” and she was only allowed to see her three times a week for three hours at a time.
Joe Allman, prosecuting, asked if she had been trying to evoke sympathy from the jury by tucking a pink baby’s bonnet visibly into the top of her trousers.
“No. Definitely not,” Ms Joynes said. “I sleep with this every night.”
The trial continues.