A predatory maths teacher has been found guilty of having sex with two teenage boys he taught at a secondary school.
Rebecca Joynes, 30, had been suspended from her high school job and released on bail after having sex with Boy A, 15, after having sex with Boy B, the second child she later became pregnant with.
Although she had unprotected sex with Boy B after telling him she couldn’t get pregnant, towards the end of their relationship she was surprised and devastated by the growth of her baby, calling him ‘Best Dad’.
Jurors heard both boys, who cannot be identified because of their age, were sent flirty Snapchat messages by Joynes before inviting them to his home for sexual encounters.
Joynes, described by teenagers as soft-spoken and “really beautiful”, closed her eyes and grimaced before starting to visibly shake as she stood in the dock as guilty verdicts were announced by the jury foreman on Friday after a two-week trial.
In Child A’s case, she gave him all but one of the digits of his phone number and he had to find the last digit as a problem-solving exercise.
They connected via Snapchat and the pair agreed to meet secretly, sending him flirty messages. He then took her shopping and bought her a £350 Gucci belt and returned to her flat in Salford Quays where he said they had sex, his semen later recovered from the woman’s bed sheet by police.
Boy B said that sexual activity began at the age of 15 with kissing and full sex, and that it started when he was 16 and still a student.
Joynes said he had a “breakdown” and moved back in with his family on the Wirral after he was suspended from his job following a police investigation into his relationship with Boy A.
She was in a bad mood when the boy named B sent her a message on Snapchat asking how she was doing. “I thought he really cared,” Joynes said. Shortly after, boy B also started texting, “Take your breasts off,” to which Joynes replied, “Not tonight.”
Birthday boy B lied to his parents, saying he had gone to watch a Manchester United match, but instead went back to Joynes’ flat.
She told jurors how “nervous” she was when she lost her virginity to Joynes and warned him: “Don’t expect anything big, I’m only 16”.
As he undressed Joynes he said: “Oh! You lied to me”.
He later told police he viewed the relationship as “friends with benefits” and that they had sex regularly while he was at school.
He claimed the relationship deteriorated with frequent arguments as Joynes became jealous and controlling.
In an attempt to salvage the relationship, and just one day before Joynes was arrested for the second time, she invited boy B to a “date night” that included an Ann Summers scratch card, rose petals and secret notes around his apartment involving sexual activities. to the “surprises” he plays with and follows.
Finally, a baby grew up with ‘Best Daddy’ written on the front. The boy named B asked the police: “‘What’s going on!’ “I thought,” he said.
In a letter to the boy Joynes B, he wrote: “Every inch of you is perfect. You are the only thing I dream of.”
Joynes claimed that no sexual activity took place with Boy A, and that a relationship developed with Boy B while he was suspended from his job, and that he only had sexual intercourse after he was dismissed and Boy B left school at the age of 16, so no crime took place.
The defendant was found guilty of six counts of sexual activity with a child at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday; two of which were while he was a person in a position of trust following a hearing following nine hours of deliberation.
Prosecutor Joe Allman had previously told jurors he hoped they would view the case differently because the defendant was a woman, not a man.
She questioned why inappropriate Snapchats, comments and boys referring to her as ‘Becky in this one’ were not immediately “shut down” by the teacher and questioned whether she was into teenage boys.
He was also accused of making a “bare attempt to garner the sympathy” of the jury by visibly tucking a pink baby headdress down the front of his trousers.
Earlier Joynes told the jury he ruined his “dream job” by making stupid “mistakes” by meeting up with two teenagers and sending them back to his home, but refused to have underage sex.
Joynes joined the school in 2018 as part of the Teach First teacher recruitment scheme after studying for a degree in sport and exercise science.
She said she was 28, had gone through a messy breakup following the end of a nine-year relationship, was struggling during the Covid pandemic and had been left alone when she was “flattered” by the attention from teenage students.
Michael O’Brien, defending, had accused Boy A of teenage boy bullying and claimed Boy B had chosen to “distort the dates” to say sex started earlier, when he was still at school and aged 15.
Joynes cried as she told jurors that her baby with Boy B was taken away from her just hours after birth and that she is now only allowed to see the child three times a week.
His mother and father showed no reaction in the public gallery after the verdicts were announced, but meters away the boys’ parents drowned out cheers as Joynes was sentenced.
Judge Kate Cornell thanked jurors and said she would need reports on the defendant before sentencing in July.
He granted Joynes bail but warned him: “There is a baby in this case who has done nothing wrong and is completely innocent of all wrongdoing and obviously you will want to see him before sentencing, I understand that.
“But you should be under no illusions about what will happen on July 4th.”
CPS North West senior prosecutor Jane Wilson said: “Rebecca Joynes is a sexual predator. Joynes was given the responsibility of teaching and protecting the children. He abused his position as a groom and eventually sexually abused schoolchildren.
“Their behavior had a lasting impact on them. The CPS worked with Greater Manchester Police to build a strong case to be presented to the jury, including eyewitness statements, phone evidence and CCTV footage showing messages sent by Joynes.
“I would like to thank the victims for their support of the prosecution. Joynes will now face the consequences of his actions.”