Teacher said she liked attention from teenagers after ‘struggling’ with break-up
A maths teacher said she liked attention 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, 30, denies four charges of sexual activity with two teenagers, and two counts of sexual activity while being a person in a position of trust.
Manchester Crown Court heard she had been arrested and suspended from her job in October 2021 over allegations of sexual activity with Boy A, aged 15. She denies any sexual contact with the boy.
The teacher admitted to meeting Boy A after he correctly guessed her mobile phone number during a maths lesson.
She agreed she had 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.
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 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.
She added that she shouldn’t have contacted Boy A and should “definitely” not have taken him to her apartment, but she had been “lonely” and had “responded” to the attention he gave her.
‘Struggled over Covid period’
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”.
Joynes 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.”
Joynes was on conditional bail which banned her from unsupervised contact with under-18s when she allegedly had sex with Boy B, 16, whom she later became pregnant by.
It is alleged they first had sex after the boy had gone to her flat in February 2022.
Joynes denied this and said she had initially seen the boy as her “best friend”, although he had later joked about them meeting up, sending her a message saying he had “left school” alongside a “winking” emoji.
She admitted they did eventually have sex after she was dismissed from her job in July 2022.
Joynes admitted to inviting Boy B back to her flat while she was on bail. She told the court they had had a “strong friendship at the beginning” and that she had been “helping him with his maths GCSE”.
She also said the pair went for a walk together.
Joynes 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.
She admitted she got Boy B to factory reset her telephone shortly before she was suspended then arrested because she had “panicked” about the situation.
‘In complete panic mode’
She said: “I don’t know I was in complete panic mode, I knew I was breaking bail conditions by having a relationship at that point.”
A tearful 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 limited contact.
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,” Joynes said. “I sleep with this every night.”
When asked earlier about the aftermath of the baby’s birth, Joynes, breaking down in tears, replied: “An emergency court hearing was held and she was taken off me 24 hours after she was born.
“At the moment I have got contact with her three times a week for three hours. That’s it.”
The trial continues.
