Rebecca Joynes is currently serving a six and a half year prison sentence

A teacher who was convicted for having sex with two boys, becoming pregnant by one, has been banned from the profession.

Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes, 31, was jailed for six and a half years in July last year after being found guilty of six counts of sexual activity with a child, after sleeping with one pupil before falling pregnant by a second while on police bail.

The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) convened earlier this month via a virtual hearing, which Joynes did not attend, to consider her professional conduct. A panel recommended she be banned from teaching.

        • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I dunno. I almost think there should be a different term or word for it. I’m not saying it’s OK at all, I just think bundling so many sexual crimes under one name isn’t great.

          For example; I was a horny teen and probably would have been into a teacher like that. It would have been wrong and it likely would have messed up different aspects of my life. I’m not condoning it or trying to downplaying it, but I feel if I had been violently been penetrated against my will by a male teacher the trauma would be a whole different kind.

          So yeah, I don’t know if we should call it rape, but I recognize the boys were underage and taken advantage of, and the crime absolutely deserves to be punished. I’m also the person who get’s all worked up by modern loose usage WMD and many others, so I know I can be a handful.

          • DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Maybe that young girl wanted to have sex with an older man? Maybe there was no force involved at all?

            NOOOOOO!!! RAPE IS RAPE! SIMPLE AS THAT!

            I get that you want to separate sex by force from sex by free will but when it comes to kids there can never be consent and it defaults to rape. It should not be minimized just because a female teacher raped young boys.

            Edit: If you want a different definition for what happens to someone being forced or not you could call it rape with assault or rape with {whatever}. I don’t think the rape part should be minimized in any way. Just extended in brutality if anything.

            • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              I get that you want to separate sex by force from sex by free will but when it comes to kids there can never be consent and it defaults to rape.

              The issue with that definition, legally, is if two 12 year olds have sex with each other, they would now both end up in jail.

              Things like that have happened in the USA btw because the law is set that way.

              The problem isn’t whether they can or can’t consent at that age - humans don’t magically gain some universal phenomena of consent at some arbitrary number.

              It’s the lack of foresight and knowledge of consequences, as well as the physical and mental health risks for young girls who get pregnant. That’s why it’s bad.

              That’s also why the best defense against pedophilia is education about sex. And why the right wing globally usually is against sex education.

              If they know what it is and what it can cause, it’ll be much harder for them to be convinced or tricked by an adult.

              • DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.world
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                1 hour ago

                I really don’t get what you are trying to say here.

                So what does the law in the US say now then? That the boy gets thrown in jail?

                Why would you not make exceptions for kids under the age of 15 to have sex with kids under 15 and kids over 15 but under 18 to have sex with kids over 15 but under 18? Granted that they both gave consent.

                In normal countries a kid can not consent to have sex with adults and it would be defined as rape and general sexual education is not frowned upon.

            • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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              14 hours ago

              I don’t think they were trying to say that it should be minimised. But we should define crimes precisely. After all we make a distinction between murder by intent, murder by negligence, and murder by proxy. They’re all still murder, and they all still result in lifetime sentences, but we make the distinction.

              • DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.world
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                14 hours ago

                And those crimes are all called murder with additioal context added. Calling a rape something other than rape is minimizing it. We don’t need “another word” for rape.

        • BussyCat@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          They define rape as penetration

          Good news is she did seem to actually be punished with a sizable prison sentence (by uk standards)

        • Gladaed@feddit.org
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          1 day ago

          In a lot of jurisdictions rape is definited in that narrow way, but there is a crime with equal punishment that catches the rest of sexual crimes that you might call rape in america.

      • WIZARD POPE💫@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Do I look like I give a fuck what the law says? They were underage, ergo could not give consent, ergo it was rape. Also power dynamics teacher pupil makes it even more rapey

        • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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          Do I look like I give a fuck what the law says? They were underage,

          Blatantly, by the very next words.

        • fonix232@fedia.io
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          2 days ago

          In the UK, the definition of rape requires penetration from the offending party by their genitalia. So unless the teacher has a monster clit she used to anally penetrate the boys, the definition of rape can’t apply. For that there’s the broader definition of sexual assault.

          Journalists, since their purpose is to serve the public with the truth, have to really carefully choose their words as using the wrong legal term can get them in hot water - libel lawsuits and such, not to mention accusations of trying to shape the public’s opinion, and so on.

          So yeah, you’ll rarely find directly said out statements in the news as most journos will try to get to as close to the definition as possible without exposing themselves to legal action. That’s why you’ll often see e.g. statements like “the purported killer” even if there’s clear evidence of the person being the murderer, simply because the case hasn’t been judged yet therefore the legal term murderer - which requires a conviction - cannot be applied, and using it before the trial even happens is a big no-no.

          Don’t get me wrong, I fully agree with you that if it was a man with two young girls, the article would be going on the offensive much quicker, and even here they should’ve used the term “sexually assaulted” instead of “had sex with”, but specifically the term rape cannot apply here.

          • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Thank you for the informative reply. As a layman in another country who isn’t worried about specific local laws, I’d like to add that she raped at least two children.

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              New York had (has?) a similar distinction. It came up in the E Jean Carrol saga; specifically Trump suing for defamation after her lawsuit, because it wasn’t- technically- rape.

              IIRC it was dismissed with the judge saying that it fits the modern lay definition of rape and that’s not defamation.

          • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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            1 day ago

            by their genitalia

            So the IDF can bring their dogs and iron bars, to the UK, and that’s not rape…

            … Gets me wondering wtf law makers in the UK are up to.

            • fonix232@fedia.io
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              The UK’s law is precedent based. The definition of rape thus goes back all the way to the 1800s (like many other restrictive laws that need to be revisited, e.g. classifying any transportation device with any kind of engine, i.e. not human or animal propelled, as a vehicle thus forcing the owners of e.g. low end e-scooters to have licences, registration, insurance etc. without providing the framework for any of these), wherein rape was almost exclusively committed by men, therefore lawmakers found it proper to define it as penetration of the victim using one’s genitalia - in a way to differentiate from “lesser” sexual assaults like flashing someone or forcing their hands on said genitalia.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            They didn’t call it “sexual assault” either, so I’m inclined to not accept that excuse.

          • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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            2 days ago

            by their genitalia.

            So, like not using an object of some sort?

            Journalists, since their purpose is to serve the public with the truth, have to really carefully choose their words as using the wrong legal term

            Still seems like a more generic term such as “sexual assault” would be applicable here.

            • wewbull@feddit.uk
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              2 days ago

              It would, but that’s a very broad term. I expect they were trying to be specific, but only succeeded in being forgiving in the headline.

        • tomiant@piefed.social
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          2 days ago

          Do I look like I give a fuck what the law says? They were underage, ergo could not give consent

          Underage is literally a legal definition, so clearly you do care. Calm down.

        • PoastRotato@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I agree, but there are libel laws to consider here. It serves no one to open yourself up to a lawsuit, especially one from which the rapist can only benefit.

        • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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          Do I look like I give a fuck what the law says?

          methinks yes?

          if not you, then at least journalistic integrity in the UK does

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      24 hours ago

      I’m going to take a guess that, if they were over the age of consent, it would have been consensual.

    • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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      Like I just said within my reply to the original post:

      Did they give informed consent? Oh that’s right, if they’re that young, they’re denied that human right, and so we hand them over to the black market to be abused, increasing their allure to rapists and blackmailers alike. >:-| We really need to come up with better ways to protect children.

      So (unless the thing the other reply to this said [“Legally speaking women cannot be rapists in the UK”] is true), then, that’s “statutory rape” [regardless of their informed consent]. Yup. Though I’m not convinced it’s necessarily “correct”.