A COUPLE kiss in a parked car overlooking the Solent coastline – each seemingly besotted by one another.
It is a typically romantic scene – except that the boy is just 16, and he is in the company of his much older, “attention seeking” blonde teacher.
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The stomach-churning episode is one of several grim scenes spelled out in court this week as Bronwen James’ fate was sealed.
Now, after the PE teacher’s conviction of three counts of sexual activity with a child, The Sun can reveal the full scale of her depravity.
Alarm bells should have rung when the predator was given a written warning from a private school for sharing her phone number with a pupil.
She left posh £54,000-a-year Seaford College in West Sussex under a cloud after it emerged she had shared her private contact details with a young student as far back as 2018 at the beginning of her teaching career.
But incredibly James, 30, went on to seduce and have sex with three pupils at two different schools before she was finally reported to police.
A stunned jury heard she was living out her “fantasy” and demanded she got called “Miss” as she bedded a 16-year-old schoolboy while watching Wimbledon at a home she shared with her boyfriend.
They convicted her without knowing she had already admitted a previous attack on a 14-year-old girl at the same Bitterne Park School in Southampton.
Again, she had taken the teen back to her home where they had sex.
After splitting from her partner, James moved back to her parents home in Chippenham, Wilts, where she struck up another sexual relationship with a schoolgirl at Hardenhuish School.
Prosecutor Edward Culver said she “craved attention” and “power and control” and fulfilled the teenage boy’s “schoolboy dream” of having sex with her for the thrill.
He added it was not romantic “Mills and Boon” fiction, but simply “a PE teacher wanting some attention and adoration so she would feel better, and him the dream of sex with a teacher.”
James, who kept a blank face throughout her trial at Winchester Crown Court, admitted she was “not a good teacher” and blurred the lines between Miss and student.
She allowed pupils on her PE Btec course to listen to music and be on their phones in her class as she wanted to be popular.
But her friendly approach had a more sinister motive – and the power imbalance allowed her to manipulate her naive favourites to gratify her own sexual desire.
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James initially denied allegations against all three pupils but later changed her plea to guilty against the two girls.
As a result the details of her sordid entrapment was not revealed in court.
But all of the cases involved her messaging and flirting with the teenagers before ultimately meeting up and having sex.
James was living with her boyfriend and their dog at a small red brick terraced home in sleepy Titchfield, Hants, around the time she latched on to the boy.
A neighbour in the quiet cul-de-sac said they were “shocked” to learn of her behaviour and that she was always a “lovely, quiet and friendly person”.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said that she used to look after James and her boyfriend’s cocker spaniel and that she had no issues with her when she lived there.
She said: “They were fine. Her parents would come down now and again to visit.
“We didn’t have any problems or anything with them.
“They lived there through COVID because they went and got some sports equipment from the school, not sure which one, and they were playing outdoor games together in the garden.
“They were just neighbourly like any normal neighbour.”
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The woman said that she had never seen any young people coming or going from the house which James and her boyfriend bought in 2020.
She said that both James and her partner were PE teachers and that he worked for a school in Gosport, Hants, at the time.
The woman said: “They liked their sport because they were both PE teachers.”
She said that James moved out when she and her boyfriend split up in 2022, and they sold the house to another couple.
She said: “It was kind of a quick get-up-and-go.
“They split up, and they went. It was quite a while back.
“They literally just upped and left and sold the house.”
The court heard that while James was living there she got in the relationship with the 16-year-old boy.
He told the court he had added her on Snapchat and the pair sent flirty messages.
James, who now has brunette hair and wears it down, would secretly give him gifts of vapes at school.
They exchanged passport photos and she laughed at how his looked like a “mugshot”.
On one occasion he was almost caught slapping her bottom by a senior teacher.
The prosecution told the jury “we would not be here now” if he had been caught.
Soon James arranged to meet after school and took the lad to a nearby coastal beauty spot called Weston Shore.
The pair sat in her car overlooking the Solent and kissed while families played on the nearby pitch and putt.
Things escalated from there with James taking her back to her house and had sex with him.
The lad told police: “We were watching TV. We started touching, started kissing.
“We had been cuddled up on the sofa. Her head in my lap. Watching TV. Her dog was there.
“I went in for a kiss and we started kissing. It was horny.
“I said should we go upstairs and we went upstairs and that is where it happened.
“We went upstairs and got in bed and she got naked and I got naked.”
They went on to have sex on three more occasions and the court heard they messaged daily and even discussed moving in together.
James referred to him as “Number 8” – the eighth person she had slept with.
He said: “She told me that it was more than just sex and she loved me.
“I was overwhelmed and thought this is just great.”
They began to spend time alone on school grounds while they were sleeping with each other.
But the sick Miss was busted when a screenshot of a message between her and the boy was sent on a WhatsApp to 30 to 40 pupils.
That was then sent on to the school’s safeguarding team by a student and subsequently to the police.
James, one of four siblings, left the school in 2022 and moved back to Chippenham where she joined Hardenhuish and struck up a new illicit romance.
Little details have emerged except that she again sent sexual messages and committed sexual activities with a girl.
She was arrested in August 2023 and went on to commit further offences against one of the students while on bail.
She arrived at court each day of her trial wearing smart long dresses and has tattoos of flowers on her left forearm and small symbols tattooed on her right forearm.
She became slightly emotional when she began giving evidence – but otherwise kept a straight face throughout her trial.
She was today found guilty of the sexual relations with the 16-year-old – and looked ashen in court as the jury returned the verdict.
In her evidence, James had told the jury she felt she was immature, easily influenced and very lenient with pupils.
But she denied flirting with the teen and having sex with him – claiming the boy made up the allegations to look “cool” in front of his mates.
James also said she began teaching aged just 21 and described herself as “immature” and conceded she did not think she was a good teacher.
She said: “I just don’t think I was ready for it. As my career progressed, I realised maybe I was seeking validation from the wrong people.
“I think I was a very lenient teacher, I was not strict, there were behaviour policies I would not necessarily follow, such as using mobile phones in lessons.
“But I did not want to upset them, I did not want to anger them. I wanted them to like me.”
James, of Chippenham, Wiltshire, will be sentenced at a later date.
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.
“James manipulated her victims with calculated precision, exploiting her position of authority to isolate them and normalise the abuse. This was not a lapse in judgement; it was a sustained pattern of predatory behaviour against children in her care.
“The courage shown by James’s victims in coming forward has been instrumental in securing this conviction. I hope it gives them, and their families, some measure of justice.”