A chemistry teacher has been convicted of having sexual relationships with two pupils at an all-boys school in the late 1980s.
Sally-Anne Bowen, who taught at Christ’s College in Finchley, north London, indecently assaulted the teenage boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s.
Jury returns majority verdicts
On Thursday, a jury at Harrow Crown Court returned majority verdicts finding the 65-year-old guilty of seven counts of indecent assault after six hours and 29 minutes of deliberations.
Bowen, who stood in the dock dressed in a black skirt, purple shirt, and black blazer jacket, did not appear to show emotion as verdicts were read out.
Complainants give evidence
One complainant told jurors he had sex with the teacher “about 20 or 30 times” over several months, would visit Bowen’s home, considered her to be his girlfriend and had fallen in love.
In his evidence, the man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said he kept their relationship secret because he felt compelled to “protect” the teacher, who had “drummed it” into him that he was not allowed to tell anyone.
“I never, ever spoke to anyone about it,” he said. “I was always really aware, she drummed it into me.” He added: “Years she got to teach because I remained silent.”
The second complainant said he and Bowen kissed once in a cafe when he was “goaded” into it by other boys.
Former pupil describes behaviour in class
Jurors were also told Bowen would dress at school in a way that was “sexually provocative”, with a former pupil telling the trial she acted like she was in “a Sabrina Carpenter video” while in the classroom.
“She dressed and behaved more like my teenage female friends than the other teachers,” former pupil Tobias Oliver, who did not know the two victims, previously told the court. “The topics of conversation in class often strayed away from chemistry and became quite sexual.”
Mr Oliver told the court Bowen had no boundaries and “felt more like trying to be one of us, like our friend, than a teacher”. He said Bowen was “very flirtatious” in class and told them how she enjoyed giving oral sex to her boyfriend.
He said there was an occasion when a boy in Bowen’s class was reading a “sex manual”, which he believed to be the Kama Sutra, and Bowen went through the book and went on to discuss “the merits of different sexual positions” with the students. He said this was not a “brief incident” and it “became the focus of the lesson”.
Mr Oliver also described how on another occasion Bowen sat on a desk and caught the attention of the class before slowly opening her legs, revealing her underwear.
Complaint and sentencing
Richard Luker, who was head of science at the school in the late 1980s, told the court he remembered a complaint from the first alleged victim’s mother that she was concerned the boy was planning to travel abroad with Ms Bowen at the end of term.
During the trial, Bowen claimed the allegations were “total fabrication” and that she had a medical condition which, in the late 1980s, had not been diagnosed and that made sexual intercourse difficult and painful for her.
Bowen, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, is to be sentenced on November 20.
