A maths teacher who wrecked her career by having a one-night stand with a 15-year-old pupil then got pregnant by a second boy broke down in tears as she was today found guilty of a string of sex offences.
Rebecca Joynes, whose parents run a successful tea-room in an upmarket part of the Wirral, moved away following a messy break-up to start her ‘dream job’ at a school in a deprived area of Greater Manchester.
But after being bombarded with comments from boys in her Year 11 maths class about how ‘sexy’ she was, earning the nickname ‘Bunda Becky’ which is a slang reference to her bottom, she invited one back to her luxury Salford Quays flat where they had sex twice.
Incredibly, despite being arrested and suspended after rumours of the illicit fling spread, Joynes ‘brazenly’ went onto embark on a secret sexual relationship with one of his classmates.
It was finally exposed after she confessed to the second teenager – to whom she wrote a love letter saying ‘Every inch of you is perfect’ – that she was pregnant with his child.
Guilty: Rebecca Joynes has been convicted of sleeping with her two pupils after a two-week trial at Manchester Crown Court
Rebecca Joynes arriving at Manchester Crown Court on Friday before being 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
Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes and her father Stuart leave court after she was convicted of having sex with two schoolboys
Rebecca Joynes pictured in 2018, years before she had sex with two of her students
Throughout the trial Joynes arrived to court each day wearing a baby’s bonnet tucked into the waistband of her trousers. She later denied this was to ‘win sympathy’ from the jury – but they were not convinced
Joynes was found guilty of having sex with two 15-year-old pupils, one of whom she bought a £345 Gucci belt from Selfridges at the Trafford Centre
Rebecca Joynes pictured with her father Stuart and mother Melanie on May 7
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Damningly he told police it had dawned on him that he’d ‘sacrificed 18 months for a paedophile’.
‘She just basically mentally abused me,’ he added.
The Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘Rebecca Joynes is a sexual predator.’
It can now be revealed that the 30-year-old spent five months in custody after the second boy spoke to police.
Neither victim can be identified for legal reasons.
Joynes was only released on stringent bail conditions due to the ‘intractable’ problem of her daughter’s impending birth.
To compound the self-inflicted personal tragedy, the baby was taken away from her within 24 hours of being born earlier this year following an emergency court hearing.
‘At the moment I have got contact with her three times a week for three hours,’ she told the court through sobs.
‘That’s it.’
Joynes was supported throughout the trial by her business owner father Stuart. Pictured: On Thursday as the jury were sent out to begin deliberations
Former teacher Rebecca Joynes, 30, has been found guilty after a trial at Manchester Crown Court
A childhood friend described Joynes as ‘always very quiet’ and said they were ‘shocked and very upset’ for her family, adding: ‘I would never have thought she would be capable of something like this.’
Someone else who knew Joynes as a talented athlete at West Kirby Gymnastics Club, told The Times: ‘She was a quiet and polite girl who never caused any trouble.’
Joynes and her ex-boyfriend were together from the age of 15 and broke up before the pandemic, the newspaper said.
Following a two-week trial during which jaw-dropping detail emerged about the softly-spoken former cheerleader’s career suicide, 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.
Joynes closed her eyes and grimaced, before she began visibly shaking as she stood in the dock as the guilty verdicts were returned by the jury foreman.
Her mother and father, sat in the public gallery, made no reaction but yards away the parents of the boys stifled cheers as Joynes was convicted.
Rebecca Joynes tried to cover her face as she left Manchester Crown Court with her father, Stuart, after being found guilty by jurors of having sex with schoolboys
Rebecca Joynes, accommpanied by her father Stuart (right), was released on bail by Judge Kate Cornell
She will be sentenced in July.
Upon her guilty verdict, Jane Wilson, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West, said: ‘Rebecca Joynes is a sexual predator.
‘Joynes was entrusted with the responsibility of teaching and safeguarding children. She abused her position to groom and ultimately sexually exploit schoolboys. Her behaviour has had a lasting impact on them.
‘The CPS worked with Greater Manchester Police to build a strong case to put before the jury, including eyewitness testimony, phone evidence showing the messages sent by Joynes and CCTV footage.
‘I would like to thank the victims for supporting the prosecution. Joynes will now face the consequences of her actions.’
Judge Kate Cornell told Joynes, who appeared close to tears: ‘There’s a baby in this case who has done nothing wrong and is entirely innocent, and you will obviously want to see her before sentence is passed, I understand that.
‘But you must be under no illusion about what’s going to happen on July 4. You must be at court for the sentencing and will have to serve what sentence I pass.’
Joynes – who was bailed – left the courtroom in tears with her father’s arms around her.
A relative of one of the boys, who did not wish to be identified, said: ‘It’s the right verdict.’
Rebecca Joynes pictured with her long-term partner before the crimes took place
Joynes had been released on bail under strict instructions she must not to contact any child under 18
The schoolteacher admitted to having sex with one of her former pupils, who she claimed had turned 16
It can now be revealed that her barrister unsuccessfully attempted to argue that Joynes could not be guilty of sexual activity while in a position of trust in relation to the second boy as she had by then been suspended as a teacher.
Judge Kate Cornell rejected Michael O’Brien’s bid to throw those charges out, pointing out that Joynes was still being paid her salary at the time.
Flanked by her smartly dressed father Stuart, 54, and mother Mel, 55, who together run a café selling tea and cakes in Heswall, Joynes arrived each day at court with a pink knitted baby bonnet tucked into the top of her trousers.
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She broke down in tears as she insisted to the jury that she kept the cherished memento on her at all times.
But prosecutor Joe Allman told jurors it had been a ‘pretty naked attempt to garner your sympathy’.
He pointed out that she chose to stand while giving her evidence, thereby ensuring the hat was on full view throughout.
‘She’s aware of the optics here,’ he told them in his closing speech.
‘She’s not stupid.’
Mr Allman asked jurors to consider what their view would have been if – instead of trying a ‘pretty’, petite, softly spoken female teacher called Rebecca – the allegations had instead involved a male colleague named Robert preying on vulnerable schoolgirls.
Her defence that the boys had been the ones wanting sex would rightly have seemed ‘quite obscene’ in that scenario, he argued.
‘It has the effect of warping the picture, so she almost becomes the victim and the boys the perpetrators,’ he said.
Joynes admitted that she began messaging the first pupil – referred to as Boy A – over Snapchat in October 2021.
Teacher Rebecca Joynes is pictured smiling and loved up with her ex-boyfriend
Rebecca Joynes pictured with her father Stuart and mother Mel, who run a café selling tea and cakes in Heswall
Joynes was supported throughout the trial by her business owner father Stuart. Pictured: On Wednesday
They struck up contact after she gave him most of the digits of her mobile phone number – he said ten out of 11, she claimed nine – in a Monday morning probability lesson.
She accepted buying him a £345 Gucci belt at the Trafford Centre after arranging to pick him up in her Audi after school the following Friday.
Joynes also admitted taking him back to her one-bedroom apartment where he stayed the night, but denied his claim that they had sex twice.
The 15-year-old bragged to friends about what had happened, and the following Monday morning he was taken out of lessons after a tip-off to ChildLine.
A ‘panicked’ Joynes was shown how to wipe her phone by a second schoolboy – who had already heard the rumours – before being sent home.
But after Boy A’s ‘distraught’ mother learnt the truth and stormed into school, Joynes was arrested at her apartment and interviewed, answering ‘no comment’ to most questions.
Joynes pictured outside Manchester Crown Court alongside her father Stuart last Tuesday
Rebecca Joynes (right) blamed her seeking attention from her students due to the the breakdown of her nine-year relationship
Joynes pictured with her father last Thursday – he has accompanied her to court on every day of her trial
Boy A told police that after awkwardly sitting on the couch together they ended up stripping naked and having unprotected sex twice.
He said that as Joynes was getting undressed, she said: ‘No one had better find out.’
He said having sex with his teacher seemed ‘weird’ and ‘just crazy’.
Telling officers she was ‘obviously good-looking’, he added that any boy ‘my age and in my year’ would have wanted to sleep with her.
Police later recovered ‘crystal clear’ CCTV of Joynes – still smartly dressed in jacket and trousers – with Boy A buying the belt.
Tests later found traces of his semen on her bedding – which she put down to having left him alone in the flat for several hours the following morning while she went to visit her parents.
Under cross-examination, Joynes denied she had done so in the hope he would be there on her return so they could have sex again.
Joynes denied six counts of sexual activity with a child, two of them while in a position of trust but was found guilty
The teacher blamed her illegal relationships on being ‘lonely during Covid’ and the breakdown of her nine-year relationship
Joynes pictured with her father Stuart who has given his unwavering support during the two-week trial
The sacked maths teacher arriving at Manchester Crown Court on May 16
She was released on strict bail conditions barring her from having unsupervised contact with anyone aged under 18, and returned to the Wirral to work at the family tea room.
However the following month the 15-year-old who had showed her how to wipe her phone – Boy B – began contacting her via Snapchat.
After initially asking how she was coping, he began sending crude messages including: ‘Get your t*** out.’
Jurors heard Joynes flirtatiously replied: ‘Not tonight.’
He claimed she later sent him a photograph of her bottom covered only by a thong.
While he was still only 15, Joynes invited him back to his flat where the schoolboy said she straddled and kissed him.
On turning 16 in 2022, he sent her a message saying he was now ‘legal’.
Despite still being a pupil at the school from which she remained suspended, he claimed she took his virginity, reassuring him that ‘it was great’.
Text messages between Joynes and Boy A were read out during the trial
He told police that as they entered her bedroom, a laughing Joynes told him: ‘Don’t expect anything big, I’m only 16 or whatever.’
Boy B added: ‘Then when we first had sex, pulling my pants down, she said, ‘Oh! You lied to me’.’
He said it lasted ’40 minutes to an hour’ but he kept ‘getting frustrated’.
‘She would just be like, ‘Chill out, take your time’.
‘I was 16 and I thought I had blown it.
‘She was like, ‘It’s your first time, it was great’.’
Boy B went onto have sex with his teacher around 30 times over the next 18 months, he said, lying to his parents that he was going to watch football or meet friends.
However he claimed he would say to her: ‘You’re a weirdo, you need help. You’re a nonce.
‘You should go and find someone your own age, you are pretty enough.’
Rebecca was supported by her parents throughout the trial
He told police Joynes gave him the ‘shock’ news that she was pregnant in June last year by leaving a ‘trail of surprises’ around her flat as part of a ‘date night’.
They included rose petals and a sex games scratchcard – culminating in a ‘baby grow’ with ‘I love my daddy’ written on it.
Boy B claimed Joynes had told him she couldn’t get pregnant because she had polycystic ovary syndrome.
‘Now I think about it, it was emotional abuse,’ he told police.
‘She just basically mentally abused me. Then I sacrificed 18 months for a paedophile.’
Giving evidence, Joynes admitted she had been ‘stupid’ to message the first boy – and then breach her bail conditions by meeting up with the second.
She told jurors she ‘struggled massively’ during the Covid pandemic, which came after a nine-year relationship came to an end.
‘I was lonely and liked the attention,’ she said.
‘I have to own up to that.’
But she insisted Boy A was lying about having sex.
And she claimed she hadn’t slept with Boy B until July 2022 – by which time he had left school and she had been sacked.
Joynes denied having a ‘powerful sexual attraction’ to boys aged around 15.
She admitted that on his 16th birthday, Boy B sent her a message reading ‘I’m legal now’ with a winking emoji.
But she claimed it was ‘just passed off as a joke’
Joynes insisted she had done nothing wrong by embarking on a full-blown sexual relationship with Boy B from the summer of 2022.
‘I was in love with him, I was pregnant with his child,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t committing an offence by doing any of it.’
In one letter to Boy B, Manchester Crown Court heard she wrote: ‘Every inch of you is perfect and you are all I ever dream about.’
Joynes claimed she hadn’t found Boy B ‘sexy’ until being sacked from her teaching post.
However she claimed the relationship became ‘toxic’, accusing her teenage lover – barely half her age – of being ‘controlling’.
By now, Boy A had already pre-recorded his evidence, but her trial had yet to take place due to a lack of court time.
Joynes was arrested for a second time, once more factory resetting her phone as officers were literally knocking on her door.
She denied six counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child, including two while being a person in a position of trust.
She now faces a lifetime ban from the teaching profession on top of a lengthy prison sentence – and a battle to spend time with her baby daughter conceived in such sordid circumstances.
After the verdict, Detective Constable Beth Alexander, of Greater Manchester Police’s Child Protection Investigation Unit, said: ‘Firstly, I would like to thank the victims and their families for being brave enough to come forward and work with us in our investigation.
‘Rebecca Joynes is a sexual predator. She was their teacher and they rightfully put their trust in her.
‘But Joynes decided to abuse her position and used it to groom two teenagers.
‘We welcome today’s verdict and now wait for Joynes to face the consequences for her actions.
‘I would like to thank the officers who have worked closely with the victims and their families in establishing the full circumstances of this case, as well as the investigation team for their hard work and dedication during this investigation.
‘The two victims and their families have asked for their privacy to be respected now and moving forward – they all wish to carry on with their lives and put this ordeal behind them.’