How trainer’s father supported daughter on trial for bedding college students
Throughout her two-week trial on charges of unlawful sexual activity with two pupils, one person was never more than a few feet away from Rebecca Joynes – her devoted father Stuart.
Every morning outside court, the 54-year-old tearoom owner – always immaculately dressed – would be at her side as she arrived, usually with an arm around her waist.
As their daughter’s sexual encounters with 15-year-old boys were spelt out in intimate detail at Manchester Crown Court, Mr Joynes and Mel, his wife of 32 years, would be sitting in the public gallery – just a few feet from members of both her victims’ families.
Just how close Joynes was to her parents became clear during her evidence.
She gave her account of how she first brought a schoolboy to spend the night at her one-bed apartment in a soft but confident voice.
Stuart Joynes walked his daughter Rebecca into court every single morning she was on trial – her parents attended every day
Rebecca Joynes pictured with her father Stuart and mother Mel, who run a café selling tea and cakes in Heswall
The 54-year-old tearoom owner often showed his support for his daughter – on trial for sexual offences against two of her students – with a comforting arm around her waist
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
Her betrayal of every golden rule of pupil safety came after 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.’
However for the first time she became tearful and had to pause as she spoke of seeing her mother and father after first being questioned by police in October 2021.
Joynes wiped her eyes as Judge Kate Cornell told her: ‘Just take your time.’
The Audi-driving teacher – who was then aged 28 – said she’d had to stay in a hotel room as her Salford Quays apartment was still a ‘crime scene’.
At 5.30am, her parents arrived and told her they were taking her back to Heswall in the Wirral, which she referred to as ‘home’ despite having her own flat.
‘I don’t think I got out of bed for a while,’ Joynes said.
‘My mum and dad were really supportive once I’d opened up to them about the situation.’
The tea-room has a stellar reputation in upmarket Heswall, with Mr Joynes pictured online with customers including former Tory minister Edwina Currie
The family business has a stellar reputation in the town and the couple’s children worked stints in the tearoom
Joynes told the court her parents were ‘really supportive’ of her when she told them about the police investigation
Joynes had been released on bail under strict instructions she must not to contact any child under 18
Joynes denied six counts of sexual activity with a child, two of them while in a position of trust but was found guilty
Joynes said they let her work in the family business, Isabelles, adding: ‘I tried to surround myself with people who cared for me.’
Their generosity also featured in her evidence, with Joynes mentioning a designer bracelet they had bought her – she claimed Boy A had admired it and initially asked her to buy him jewellery before instead agreeing on a £345 Gucci belt.
The tea-room has a stellar reputation in upmarket Heswall, with Mr Joynes pictured online with customers including former Tory minister Edwina Currie.
Established 12 years ago, the business has evidently been a success, with Mr Joynes sharing photographs on Instagram of flying Virgin Upper Class to Barbados as a joint 50th birthday treat for him and his wife in 2019.
This week one woman who used visit the café regularly with her toddler told Mail Online that Rebecca Joynes had always seemed ‘very overly nice’, adding that she now found her behaviour ‘a bit strange’.
Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes and her father Stuart leave court after she was convicted of having sex with two schoolboys
The prosecution told jurors Joynes was attempting to ‘garner your sympathy’ by showing up to court with a baby’s bonnet
The teacher blamed her illegal relationships on being ‘lonely during Covid’ and the breakdown of her nine-year relationship
‘You can be nice, that’s fine, but to be just over the top, then it’s a bit odd,’ she added.
But in 2022 she started spending more time back at her apartment, saying she ‘didn’t enjoy living in the Wirral’ after a difficult end to a nine-year relationship.
‘He lived around the corner,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t go on walks.’
It was in the weeks which followed that she began inviting the second pupil back to her apartment – the beginning of an 18-month sexual relationship which ended when she confessed she was expecting his baby, the court heard.
Right from the start of the trial, Joynes – who revealed the baby daughter fathered by her schoolboy lover was taken away from her within 24 hours of her birth – always had a pink knitted bonnet sticking out of a pocket or her waistband.
According to the prosecution, the hat was a ‘pretty naked attempt to garner your sympathy’, with jurors told that Joynes was ‘aware of the optics here’.
