Rebecca Joynes: Predator teacher cries after being jailed for having sex with two teens

A paedophile teacher who had sex with two teenage boys and had a baby with one of them has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

Disgraced maths teacher Rebecca Joynes, 30, was convicted in April of six counts of sexual activity with children after sleeping with one student before becoming pregnant by a second while on bail.

The boys, whose names cannot be released for legal reasons, were 15 and 16 at the time.

The parents of the two boys watched as Joynes, wearing a gold necklace, a black quilted jacket and blonde highlights in her hair, visibly shook and broke down in tears as she was jailed at Manchester Crown Court.

Sentencing the defendant, Judge Kate Cornell told him: “Your conduct was breathtakingly arrogant. You were an adult.

“You were the person in control, the person who should have known better and who the school, the boys and their parents should have entrusted with the responsibility of caring for their sons.

“Instead, you abused this position of trust and exploited this privileged role for your own sexual gratification.”

Joynes wept as she was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday morning after a two-week trial in which a jury heard she cultivated relationships with the boys via flirty Snapchat messages.

She had looked after them carefully and bought one of them, called Boy A, a £350 Gucci belt on a trip to the Trafford Centre.

She then took the boy back to her flat in Salford Quays, where they had sex twice before Joynes told the teenager: “No one wants to know.” But the next day the boy’s mother spotted a love bite on her son’s neck and police were called.

Joynes was suspended pending a police investigation, but that didn’t stop her from inviting the second student, Boy B, to her flat for a “date night” which involved an Ann Summers scratch card about sexual activities.

In a letter to the teenager, Joynes wrote: “Every inch of you is perfect. You are everything I have ever dreamed of.”

Boy B reported that sexual activity began at age 15, with kissing and full intercourse occurring at age 16 and while he was still a school student.

She became pregnant with the boy and gave birth earlier this year, but the child was taken from her within 24 hours.

The court heard Boy B’s life “will be forever different” after becoming a father at such a young age.

In a statement read to the court, he said: “I was coerced and controlled, manipulated, sexually abused and mentally abused.”

Joynes was convicted of six counts of sexual activity with a child, including two counts while he was a person in a position of trust.

The trial heard how Joynes joined the school in 2018, through the Teach First teacher recruitment scheme, after studying for a degree in sport and exercise science at the University of Liverpool.

But at 28, the former childhood gymnast had endured a difficult breakup after a nine-year relationship, struggled during the Covid pandemic and felt lonely when “flattered” by the attention of teenage schoolchildren.

Joynes said she had a “nervous breakdown” after being suspended from her job following the police investigation into her relationship with Boy A, and had returned to her parents’ home in Wirral.

Judge Cornell said Joynes was a “high-achieving woman” who had ruined her career and had her baby taken away by her own actions.

She continued: “From the outside, it can be easy to fall into the misconception that these boys were not victims.

“One wonders what 15-year-old boy wouldn’t want to have sex with an older, more attractive female teacher? Surely they would be up for it? How can that be a crime?”

“Well, Mrs Joynes, there is no doubt that this is a crime. The two boys were real victims, clearly unsociable and vulnerable to the advances of an attractive older woman.

“You felt encouraged and energized by their attention. You were the one with the car, the apartment, the money, the life experience.

“You have failed to fully understand the facts, you continue to deny the crimes and you remain silent about the disturbing impact of these crimes on these boys.”

Jane Wilson, Senior Crown Prosecutor for the North West CPS, said: “Rebecca Joynes was in a position of trust as a teacher at the high school.

“She abused her position to groom and exploit two schoolchildren in the worst possible way, with no regard for the lasting impact this would have on them.

“All parents send their children to school with the expectation that they will be protected and cared for; Joynes’ actions have eroded that trust.”