A former PE teacher has been convicted of sexually abusing pupils after forming relationships with three teenagers at schools in Wiltshire and Hampshire.
Bronwen James, 30, from Chippenham, was found guilty at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday, September 10, of three counts of sexual activity with a child by a person in a position of trust.
James had stood trial over allegations involving a 16-year-old boy she taught while working at Bitterne Park School in Southampton.
She was convicted on three charges relating to the boy but cleared of a fourth charge.
It can now also be reported that James had already admitted a series of sexual offences involving two schoolgirls aged 13 and 14 before the trial began.
Relationship with 16-year-old pupil
Winchester Crown Court heard James began exchanging messages with the 16-year-old after accepting him on Snapchat.
Prosecutors said she initially drove the teenager to Weston Shore in Southampton, where they kissed in her car.
They later went to James’s home, where the prosecution said they had sex. The court heard sexual encounters took place on several occasions.
James also sent the teenager daily messages in which she told him she loved him and wanted them to move away together.
The relationship was discovered after another student showed a teacher messages exchanged between James and the boy.
Prosecutor Edward Culver told the court the messages indicated a “sexually charged relationship”, with the teenager referred to as “number 8” as a means of disguising his identity.
James denied having a sexual relationship with the boy during her trial and claimed he had fabricated the allegations to appear “cool” in front of his friends.
The jury rejected her account and convicted her of three offences.
Sexual offences involving two schoolgirls
Before the trial, James had admitted offences involving two female pupils.
The court heard that one girl was 13 when James began sexually communicating with her.
James admitted offences including sexual activity and sexual communication involving the girl, with the sexual relationship developing after she turned 14.
Further offences involved another 14-year-old pupil, with the court hearing James had sex with the girl in the back of her car.
She also admitted offences involving sexual communication and making an indecent photograph of a child.
James had worked at Bitterne Park School in Southampton and Hardenhuish School in Chippenham, where the sexual relationships took place.
The teacher had previously received a warning
It can also now be reported that James had previously received a written warning while working at private school Seaford College in West Sussex.
The warning followed James sharing her personal mobile phone number while employed at the school.
The prosecution had sought to tell jurors about James’s previous conduct during the trial as evidence of what it described as her “propensity”, but reporting restrictions prevented the information from being published while the case was being heard.
‘Trusted to educate and protect children’
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.”
She said James had manipulated her victims and exploited her position of authority, describing the offending as a “sustained pattern of predatory behaviour against children in her care”.
James will be sentenced at a later date.
