A female PE teacher has been found guilty of sex offences against a teenage boy, after previously admitting preying upon two female pupils, it can now be revealed.
Bronwen James, 30, was convicted of having sex three times with the male pupil – whom she insisted called her ‘miss’ – including while they watched Wimbledon together.
It can now be disclosed that James previously pleaded guilty to a raft of further offences against two female pupils while she was teaching.
She admitted nine charges relating to the further two victims on the first day of her trial at Winchester Crown Court, where she was today found guilty of four counts of sexual activity against the male victim.
The verdicts came after 12 hours and three minutes of deliberation.
She was released on conditional bail, but will be remanded in custody on September 14 to be sentenced at a future date.
After the verdicts were delivered by the jury, Judge James Bromige told the court: ‘There are multiple victims so I am duty bound to consider dangerousness. There are two other female victims at the same time.’
At the start of her career, James received a warning while she was teaching at the £54,000-a-year Seaford College for giving her personal mobile number to a pupil.
She was allowed to continue working and went on to strike up sexual relationships with the three pupils while teaching at Bitterne Park School in Southampton and Hardenhuish School in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
The court heard that James organised meetings with her male victim at Bitterne Park School on Snapchat and picked him up so they could kiss in the car as part of their ‘sexually charged relationship’.
She also used Snapchat to groom one of her female victims, against whom she went on to commit sexual offences in the back of her car.
The other girl would be collected by James in her car and taken to the teacher’s home, where ‘sexual activity would take place’, the court previously heard.
Following today’s verdict, Bethany Adams of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘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 normalise 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.’
Bronwen James, 30, became ‘flirtatious’ with the teenage pupil and invited him to her home for sex up to four times, jurors were told
The teacher has been on trial at Winchester Crown Court accused of four counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust, which she denied
During the one-week trial, jurors heard that James told her male victim that she ‘loved him’ and ‘wanted to move away’ with him.
The boy – who cannot be named for legal reasons – told the court that he was ‘groomed’ by James but at the time thought it was ‘great’ and made him feel like he was living ‘a teenage boy’s dream’.
In police interview footage played to the court, the boy claimed James liked him to call her ‘miss’ when they were alone together.
‘I always called her “miss”, I don’t know why, I think it was her little fantasy or something,’ he said.
The boy said that they ‘always used to flirt in lessons’ before they met up in her car, which soon progressed to having sex at her house. He said: ‘At the time I was overwhelmed. It was great but, looking back at it, it was wrong.’
Describing the first occasion at her 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.’
The boy added that in class James, whom he described as ‘quite attractive’, would slip him vapes in his coursework.
He also described how James told him that she loved him over the phone while she was standing outside a nightclub with other teachers at her leaving party. He added: ‘I thought she cared about me.’
Prosecutor Edward Culver had told jurors the case was about ‘a teacher who exploited her position’ to engage in sexual activity with one of her students.
‘She flirted with him, exchanged messages with him, took him to her home and she had sex with him,’ he said.
James organised meetings with the pupil on Snapchat and picked him up so they could kiss in the car as part of their ‘sexually charged relationship’, the court was told
She was teaching at Bitterne Park School in Southampton at the time of the allegations involving the teenage boy
James, pictured this week at Winchester Crown Court, claimed she was immature and wanted to be liked but denied flirting with the 16-year-old pupil and going on to have sex with him
Giving evidence during the trial, James told jurors she felt she was immature and wanted to be liked but denied flirting with the 16-year-old pupil and going on to have sex with him.
She suggested the teenager had made up the allegations to look ‘cool’ in front of his mates, but admitted lying to police about being in touch with him because she ‘didn’t want it to blow up’.
James said she had a ‘very relaxed’ teaching style which included joking with the students but denied that it was ever sexual.
She said: ‘It was never of a sexual nature. Just joking around about different things.
‘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.’
Jurors were told James had previously ‘received a written warning for exchanging text messages’ from her former school, Seaford College, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
Seaford College is a £54,000-per-year boarding school in West Sussex.
An investigation was launched into her relationship with the boy at Bitterne Park after a screenshot of messages between them was shared in a WhatsApp group.
In his closing remarks, prosecutor Mr Culver said: ‘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 defence 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.
‘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?’
