UK6 min(s) read
A female teacher convicted of sex offences against a teenage boy had already admitted several offences against two schoolgirls.
Bronwen James, 30, was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with the male pupil, including having sex with him three times after their relationship developed while she was his teacher.
James, who alleged during the trial that she had not had sex with the boy, had pleaded guilty on the first day of proceedings at Winchester Crown Court to nine charges involving two female pupils.
The jury deliberated for 12 hours and three minutes before finding James guilty.
She was released on conditional bail but will be remanded in custody on September 14 ahead of sentencing at a later date.
"There are multiple victims, so I am duty-bound to consider dangerousness. There are two other female victims at the same time," Judge James Bromige told the court after the verdicts.
The former gym teacher had previously received a written warning while working at Seaford College, a-year-long boarding school, after exchanging text messages with a pupil.
She worked at the school between 2018 and 2019 and was allowed to continue her teaching career.
James later formed sexual relationships with three pupils while working at Bitterne Park School in Southampton and Hardenhuish School in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
The court heard that she used Snapchat to arrange meetings with the male pupil from Bitterne Park School and would pick him up in her car, where they kissed as part of what prosecutors described as a "sexually charged relationship".
James also used Snapchat to groom one of her female victims before committing sexual offences against her in the back of her car.
The other girl was collected by James and taken to the teacher's home, where "sexual activity would take place," the court previously heard.
Bethany Adams, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said after the verdict: "Bronwen James was trusted to educate and protect children. Instead, she used that trust to groom and sexually abuse three students.
"James manipulated her victims with calculated precision, exploiting her position of authority to isolate them and normalize the abuse. This was not a lapse in judgement; it was a sustained pattern of predatory behaviour against children in her care.
"The courage shown by James's victims in coming forward has been instrumental in securing this conviction. I hope it gives them, and their families, some measure of justice," Adams added.
During the trial, the male pupil spoke about his relationship with James.
He told the court that he now considered himself to have been "groomed," although at the time he thought the situation was "great" and felt as though he was living "a teenage boy's dream."
A police interview played to jurors showed the teenager saying the teacher liked him to address her as "miss" when they were alone.
"I always called her 'miss', I don't know why, I think it was her little fantasy or something," he said.
The teenager said he initially denied the relationship after concerns were raised because he wanted it to continue.
"That is when Child Protection [Services] came to me, and I denied it because it was still going on.
"I denied it all to keep her sweet. I had a meeting with the head teacher, and I denied it all again with Child Protection."
He told the court that he and James "always used to flirt in lessons" before they began meeting outside school.
On one occasion, he said, James approached him in class after they had met the previous night and asked in a "flirty" manner: "Where were you last night?"
Their meetings in her car eventually progressed to sex at James's home, the court heard.
One meeting happened while Wimbledon was being shown on television.
"At the time, I was overwhelmed. It was great, but looking back at it, it was wrong," the boy said.
Describing the first occasion at James's home, he said: "She was coming to me on the sofa, head in my lap, watching TV, her dog was there as well, just relaxing, then I leaned in for a kiss.
"We were kissing, then things progressed, I said 'Shall we go upstairs?', she said 'yes' and we had sex. She got naked, and I got naked, and that's how it went," he shared.
The teenager also said James would slip vapes into his coursework during lessons.
He told jurors that James later said she loved him during a phone call while she was outside a nightclub with other teachers at her leaving party.
"I thought she cared about me," he said.
Prosecutor Edward Culver told jurors the case concerned "a teacher who exploited her position" to engage in sexual activity with a student.
"She flirted with him, exchanged messages with him, took him to her home, and she had sex with him," he said.
James denied flirting with the 16-year-old and having sex with him, suggesting that the teenager had fabricated the allegations to appear "cool" in front of his friends.
However, she admitted to lying to police about remaining in contact with him because she "didn't want it to blow up".
She said her teaching style was "very relaxed" and acknowledged that there had been inappropriate comments, but denied that their interactions were sexual.
"It was never of a sexual nature. Just joking around about different things," she said. "There were some inappropriate comments. It goes back to the point that I didn't want to damage the student-teacher relationship that I had gained with the class, and I wanted them to like me."
In his closing speech, Culver told jurors: "There’s no mystery in this case. Bronwen James had sex with (the pupil) on a number of occasions. That’s the central truth of this case.
"Each piece of evidence from the defense case does not make sense unless you accept that central truth, otherwise we live in a world of mystery to the point of ridiculousness.
"It's not Mills and Boon. It was, at the time, a teenage boy's dream. A PE teacher wanting some attention and adoration so she would feel better, and him the dream of sex with a teacher.
"The truth of this case is so clear - that they were in a sexual relationship of some kind and had sex at her address," Culver continued. "The truth of these allegations is that this teacher, when she had the chance to do so, breached the trust given to her by entering an improper relationship.
"We don’t know why she did it. The thrill, the control, the power, the attention. She craved that attention, the adoration, the sense she was right. And who better than an infatuated teenage boy to exploit and make her feel better?", the prosecutor concluded.
