Former PE Teacher Denies S3xual Activity With 16-year-old

Bronwen James, 30, is accused of engaging in sexual activity with the teenager on several occasions after the pair began exchanging messages online.

She was working as a PE teacher at Bitterne Park School in Southampton, Hampshire, when the alleged offences took place, Winchester Crown Court heard.

The school became aware of the alleged relationship after another student showed a teacher messages said to have been exchanged between James and the boy.

Prosecutor Edward Culver told jurors the messages pointed to an inappropriate relationship between the two.

"They suggested a sexually charged relationship; he was named as 'number 8' in the messages as a cover, him being the eighth man she had slept with," Culver told the court. "Her photo was visible on the phone screen."

The prosecution alleges James flirted with the teenager before accepting his request to add her on Snapchat, and later drove him to Weston Shore in Southampton, where they parked and kissed inside her car.

The pair are then said to have gone to James' home, where prosecutors allege they had sex, with similar encounters taking place on three or four occasions.

Describing one alleged encounter, Culver told the court: "The tennis was on at Wimbledon. They began watching TV before kissing and touching each other. She took her clothes off, and then he took his clothes off."

The prosecution further alleges the pair performed sex acts on each other before having unprotected sex, and that James sent the boy messages every day in which she said she "loved him" and "wanted to move away" with him.

After the allegations emerged, James was questioned by police under caution.

The court heard that she prepared a statement claiming she had received communications from an unknown number, later identified as belonging to the teenager, and also suggested that another student was "putting him up" to making the allegations against her.

Summarising the prosecution's case, Culver told the jury: "This is a case 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."

James, of Chippenham, Wiltshire, denies four charges of sexual activity with the teenager.

The allegations have not been proven, and the trial continues.