Paedophile maths teacher who ruined her 'dream' career by

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Teaching was her ‘dream job’, Rebecca Joynes told her trial – but by betraying the trust placed in her by the families of not one but two pupils, she had destroyed her career regardless of today’s verdicts.

Known as Becky, the 30-year-old enjoyed a stable, supportive upbringing – her parents attended every day of her trial – while her academic achievements ought to have made her an ideal recruit to her profession.

Instead, the former cheerleader today joins the soaring numbers of teachers facing a lifetime ban from the classroom over what has been dubbed ‘an epidemic of unacceptable behaviour’.

Raised in a £500,000 semi-detached house in the upmarket Wirral town of Heswall, which traces its roots back to the Doomsday Book, she attended well-regarded Pensby High School – motto ‘Care, respect, inspire’.

Her parents, Stuart, now 54, and Mel, 55, set up a successful tea room, Isabelles, over a decade ago, with Joynes and her younger sister also having spells working at the family business.

Rebecca Joynes, 30, enjoyed a stable, supportive upbringing in the Wirral town of Heswall

Joynes’ parents Stuart, now 54, and Mel, 55, have attended every day of their daughter’s trial

Teacher Rebecca Joynes is pictured smiling and loved up with her ex-boyfriend

It has earnt a stellar reputation in the area, with Mr Joynes pictured online with customers including former Tory minister Edwina Currie – and helped the couple to fly Virgin Upper Class to Barbados as a joint 50th birthday treat.

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.’

How maths teacher’s father showed his unwavering support for daughter on trial for bedding her underage students by turning up to court every day with his arm around her waist

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.

In 2013 Joynes studied for a degree in sport and exercise science across the Mersey estuary at Liverpool John Moores University, where she is understood to have joined the cheerleading club, before settling on an ambition to teach maths.

Joynes underwent a two-year programme with Teach First, a charity aimed at tackling ‘educational disadvantage’ as well as a postgraduate course in teaching maths.

Then at the age of 24 she landed a full-time job at a school in a deprived part of Greater Manchester in September 2018 – the school is not being named to protect the identity of her victims, who have lifelong anonymity.

She is understood to have been in a long-term relationship with her childhood sweetheart, travelling together for a dream two-week holiday to California in 2015, and posting pictures together as recently as 2017.

One photograph showed her smiling and loved up with her ex-boyfriend enjoying a summer holiday on a balcony overlooking a sun-kissed sandy beach in one snap.

In another she looks fresh-faced and stares into the camera grinning with her former beau as they stand next to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.

Joynes has brunette hair in all the snaps – unlike the blonde-streaked locks the ‘pretty’ maths teacher has been displaying at Manchester crown court during her trial.

The carefree happy photos are in stark contrast to the downcast mood the maths teacher has displayed while being supported by father as she arrived at court the last two weeks.

At her trial, Joynes admitted she had been ‘stupid’ to swap messages with male pupils and invite them back to her rented one-bedroom apartment in Salford Quays.

She told jurors she had ‘struggled massively’ during the Covid pandemic, which struck halfway through her second year of teaching.

Her desire for affection followed the messy end of a nine-year relationship, she said, although the name of her ex was not given in court.

Joynes told the court that she ‘was lonely and liked the attention’ after the end of her nine-year relationship

Joynes showed up to court each day with a baby’s bonnet tucked into her clothing – she gave birth to one of her student’s child

Rebecca Joynes pictured with her father Stuart and mother Mel, who run a café selling tea and cakes in Heswall

Joynes denied six counts of sexual activity with a child, two of them while in a position of trust but was found guilty

This week her ex-partner declined to comment to Mail Online about his relationship with Joynes, saying he hadn’t been following the trial

‘I was lonely and liked the attention,’ she said.

This week her ex-partner declined to comment to Mail Online about his relationship with Joynes, saying he hadn’t been following the trial.

Following the disruption of Covid, regular face-to-face lessons at the school resumed in September 2021, the jury were told.

But boys in her Year 11 class began referencing her appearance, she said, telling her she was ‘so sexy’ and dubbed her ‘Bunda Becky’ – a slang reference to her bottom.

The boy with whom she would go onto taking back to her flat for a one-night stand later told police she was ‘obviously good-looking’, saying it was ‘definitely’ something which ‘everyone’ talked about.

Some of the text messages Joynes sent to Boy A which showed them discussing to meet up together

Instead of clamping down on the ‘banter’ and requests for her phone number, jurors were told she instead gave him the first ten digits as part of an exercise on probability the following month.

The teenager, referred to as Boy A, had his own phone in class, and rang the potential numbers until hearing her handset go off on her desk, he said.

Within days they were exchanging messages, and by the end of the week he was bragging to friends that he had just had sex with his teacher.

BREAKING NEWS
Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes, 30, nicknamed ‘Bunda Becky’ by male pupils breaks down in tears as she is found GUILTY of having sex with two students – after trying to blame predatory behaviour on being lonely during Covid to them ‘controlling’ her

It was the start of a ‘brazen’ whirlwind of betrayal which was only fully exposed nearly two years later when a fellow classmate confessed they had been in an 18-month sexual relationship – and that Joynes, by now sacked from her job, was expecting his child.

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.’

Both boys were 15 when Joynes began taking each one into her flat and both had been communicating with her on Snapchat where messages are deleted and not recoverable by police.

In both cases, the activity was a secret from their parents and they both flirted with her, Boy A calling her ‘sexy’ and Boy B sending her a message saying: ‘Get your t*** out.’

In a letter, she wrote to Boy B, saying: ‘Every inch of you is perfect. You are all I ever dream about.’

She also wrote: ‘I know we are struggling right now and are both extremely stressed but I really hope we can work something out to keep this going for a while longer.’

In October 2021, she picked Boy A up in her car before collecting her dog from a doggy day care centre, dropping the pet off at her parents before taking him to the Trafford Centre.

Joynes pictured outside Manchester Crown Court alongside her father Stuart

Joyce blamed the ending of her previous nine-year relationship in court and admitted she had felt lonely and ‘like the attention’ from the teenagers

The sacked maths teacher arriving at Manchester Crown Court on May 16

The jury were shown what was ‘crystal clear’ CCTV footage of Boy A pulling out various belts at the Gucci concession Selfridges.

Joynes – wearing a turquoise jacket – could then be seen placing her bank card down on the counter before Boy A put on the belt.

Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes, 30, watched Spider-Man with a pupil and told him she was feeling depressed before having sex with him, court told

Further CCTV footage shows the pair arriving at her apartment where the boy told police they had sex twice.

Boy B told police they began kissing when he was only 15, the court heard – but Joynes claimed sexual activity only took place after he turned 16 and she had been sacked as a teacher.

Boy B told police he attempted to follow her on Snapchat in about February 2022, and that she later send him a photograph of her bottom covered only by a pair of knickers.

Messages became more ‘flirtatious’ and he too agreed to come round to her apartment.

Initially he sat ‘nervously’ on her couch, but then they ‘started kissing’ before going into her bedroom and having sex, Boy B told police.

Boy B also told police that after going to Joynes’ fifth floor apartment for the first time, as he sat on the couch he told her: ‘Am I not even going to get a kiss?’

In the following months they had sex ‘numerous times at different places’ on an estimated 30 occasions, he said.

He said they didn’t use protection when they went on to have sex as she told him she had polycystic ovary syndrome.

The jury was shown video interviews Boy B gave to police after Joynes was arrested for a second time, in which he described losing his virginity to her at her luxury Manchester apartment.

‘Obviously, it was my first time, so I was nervous,’ the youngster said.

Afterwards, Joynes told the teenager, who feared he hadn’t performed very well, ‘it’s your first time, it was great’.

On a ‘date night’ – the night before she was arrested for a second time – Joynes sprinkled rose petals around her flat and set up a sex game of ‘surprises’ for the boy, the court was told.

The game involved an Ann Summers scratchcard of sexual activities and hidden notes, which led him to discover she was expecting his baby.

‘At the end it was a baby grow,’ the boy said. ‘It said something like, “Best Dad” (on it) and I was like, “What the f***!”

‘She started crying and I started crying, because we were undecided whether to get rid of it or not.

‘That was probably the lowest point, we were irresponsible. It’s my own fault. I also thought, “what the f*** am I going to do?”

‘I can’t hide a kid. I had hid the relationship for 18 months from my parents.’

Recalling the moment to police, he said: ‘She was crying. She was saying, “I don’t know if I can do this on my own.”‘

Boy B’s older brother had been aware of the relationship but he’d been ‘stupid’, thinking it was ‘funny’, and failed to tell their parents, the jury were told.

Boy B said he ‘did love’ Joynes but the relationship soured and she became jealous and controlling, even accusing him of cheating on her with other girls.

He said eventually he realised the relationship was wrong and that he’d ‘sacrificed 18 months for a paedophile.’

Boy B said: ‘I 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”.

‘I kind of think she was playing a game with me. I did love her, to be honest, and she said she loved me.

‘Now I think about it, it was emotional abuse. She just basically mentally abused me. It was mental warfare. I sacrificed 18 months for a paedophile.’

Her conviction comes after shocking figures last year revealed that the number of teachers banned from the profession for life over sexual misconduct allegations surged sixfold in the wake of the pandemic to a five-year high.

Figures uncovered by the i newspaper under Freedom of Information rules showed 35 teachers were handed prohibition orders by the Teaching Regulation Agency over sexual misconduct allegations in the year to March 2022, up from six the previous year.

It marked the highest figure since it began recording the statistics in 2018.

In response, Stephen Morgan, Labour’s shadow schools minister, called for action ‘to tackle this epidemic of unacceptable behaviour’.

The Department for Education responded that it had ‘strengthened guidance for schools on how to deal with reports of sexual abuse’.