Teacher faces prison after being found guilty of having sex with two students

Teacher Rebecca Joynes faces years in prison after she was found guilty of having sex with two students at the school where she worked.

The 30-year-old maths teacher was labeled a “predator” after she had sex with one of the boys and then began a relationship with the second when she was released on police bail.

At the end 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 prison time when she is sentenced in July.

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

She took him to the Trafford Center and bought him a belt for £345 and afterward they had sex in her flat in Salford Quays.

When the crime came to light, she was suspended from her job and released on bail. She then entered into another sexual relationship with a student named Boy B.

Joynes took his virginity and eventually gave birth to a son, fathered by Boy B, the jury was told.

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

Their mother and father, sitting in the public gallery, did not react, but just a few feet away, the boys’ parents suppressed their cheers as Joynes was sentenced.

Judge Kate Cornell ordered pre-sentencing reports on Joynes and agreed to grant her bail for the next six weeks.

“This case is about a baby who has done nothing wrong and is completely innocent and of course you will want to see it before the verdict is made, I understand that,” she said.

“But you can’t have any illusions about what’s going to happen on July 4th.”

The court heard that Joynes joined the school in 2018 as part of the Teach First teacher recruitment program after completing a degree in sport and exercise science.

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

Joynes, called “Bunda Becky” by the boys, gave Boy A most of her cell phone number and he guessed the missing digit before they connected on Snapchat and sent her flirty text messages in which the two agreed to meet in secret.

Boy A told his mother that his teacher was “well fit” and that all the boys were rooting for her, which she dismissed as a “typical teenager” comment.

Two weeks later, the teenager lied to her and claimed that he was staying over at a friend’s house after school ended on Friday to play FIFA.

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

On the way, Joynes laughed and said, “Oh, shut up!” When Boy A said, in reference to driving, “I’m not old enough.”

Back at her apartment, they kissed and then had sex twice. Joynes told the boy, “Nobody 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 rumors were doing the rounds when the police received a tip.

Officers were at the school on Monday morning 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 released 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 bailiff that B had messaged her on Snapchat and asked how she was doing. “I really thought he cared,” she said.

Prosecutor Joe Allman said Joynes made a “naked attempt to elicit sympathy from the jury” by visibly tucking a pink baby bonnet that belonged to the child Boy B had fathered into her pants.

During the trial, Joynes sent flirty Snapchat messages to both boys.

Boy B said the sexual activity began when he was 15, with kissing and full sex when he was 16 and still a student.

Joynes denied all allegations of sexual activity with Boy A, insisting that a relationship with Boy B developed while she was suspended from her job and that she only began sexual activity after her dismissal and he had left school at 16.

During her testimony, a tearful Joynes told jurors she ruined her “dream job” by making stupid “mistakes” by meeting the two teenagers and hosting them back at her apartment, but denied having sex with minors.

She cried as she told jurors that the baby she had with Boy B was taken away from her hours after birth and she now has limited access, three times a week.

She denied six counts of sexual activity with a child, including two as a confidant, but was convicted on all counts on Friday.

Sentencing will take place on July 4th.

CPS North West senior prosecutor Jane Wilson said: “Rebecca Joynes is a sex offender.

“She was given the responsibility of teaching and protecting children. She abused her position to groom and ultimately sexually exploit schoolboys. Their behavior has had a lasting impact on them.”