{"id":657260,"date":"2026-08-26T10:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T10:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657260\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T10:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T10:33:24","slug":"teacher-accused-of-having-sex-with-pupil-20-or-30-times-rejects-claims-she-dressed-in-sexually-provocative-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/657260\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher accused of having sex with pupil ’20 or 30 times’ rejects claims she dressed in ‘sexually provocative’ way"},"content":{"rendered":"

The teacher is accused of having sexual relationships with two boys when they were both teenagers and she was in her mid-20s<\/p>\n

Mathilde Grandjean, Press Association<\/strong><\/p>\n

05:00, 25 Aug 2026Updated 09:00, 25 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

\"Chemistry<\/p>\n

Chemistry teacher Sally-Anne Bowen arrives at Harrow Crown Court, north west London, where she is accused of indecently assaulting two boys in the 1980s. <\/p>\n

A teacher accused of having sexual relationships with two pupils has told a jury, when asked if she wore short skirts at school, that she \u201cwasn\u2019t going to dress like Margaret Thatcher\u201d in her mid-20s.<\/p>\n

Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, is alleged to have indecently assaulted both teenage boys when they were aged around 14 to 15, her trial at Harrow Crown Court<\/a> heard.<\/p>\n

Bowen, who taught chemistry at the all-boys Christ\u2019s College in Finchley, north London<\/a>, in the late 1980s, was previously described by complainants and a former pupil as dressing in a way that was \u201csexually provocative\u201d at school and behaving like she was \u201cin a Sabrina Carpenter video\u201d.<\/p>\n

During her cross-examination on Monday, Bowen rejected the prosecution\u2019s suggestion that she wore \u201ctight tops\u201d and \u201cmini skirts\u201d at school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were not very short, I would not have been allowed to get away with very short skirts,\u201d she told jurors.<\/p>\n

Asked to step out of the witness box to show jurors the general length of her skirts at the time, she placed her hands a few inches above her knees and said: \u201cThey were shorter than I\u2019m wearing now \u2013 they were not mini skirts.\u201d<\/p>\n

She reminded jurors that she was then aged in her mid-20s, adding as she stepped back into the witness box: \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to dress like Margaret Thatcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chemistry<\/p>\n

Chemistry teacher Sally-Anne Bowen arrives at Harrow Crown Court, north west London<\/p>\n

One complainant alleged he had sex with the teacher \u201cabout 20 or 30 times\u201d over several months, that he would visit her at her home, considered her to be his girlfriend and had fallen in love with her.<\/p>\n

Bowen previously described his allegations as \u201ctotal fabrication\u201d and \u201cthe workings of a fantasy\u201d, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Madeleine Wolfe, cross-examining Bowen, asked the teacher if she could think of any reasons why the complainant would pursue these allegations more than 30 years later.<\/p>\n

She replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know why he is making these allegations. I have no idea what is going on at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he certainly had a crush on me at school,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the allegations that Bowen had sex with the pupil at her home address, Ms Wolfe told the teacher: \u201cIt was a shared house, he (the boy) was right about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is right that your bedroom was upstairs, it was a small bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was right about your record player, and that was a record player that you treasured, something that you were very proud of, and that was a very specific memory that (the boy) had.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did he know about that record player if he hadn\u2019t been in your bedroom?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowen replied: \u201cAnybody had a record player in the Eighties, that\u2019s how you listened to music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Wolfe continued: \u201cIt\u2019s the prosecution\u2019s case that quite a lot of the sexual activity took place in that small room.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou invited (the boy) into your house and there was smoking, you drank tea, and then you kissed him in that bedroom, didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat didn\u2019t happen, he never came inside the house,\u201d Bowen replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings progressed to masturbation, that then moved on to sexual intercourse,\u201d Ms Wolfe said.<\/p>\n

Bowen answered: \u201cThat didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teacher previously told the court she had a medical condition<\/a> which in the late 1980s had not been diagnosed, and which made sexual intercourse difficult and painful for her.<\/p>\n

The second complainant alleged he and Bowen kissed once in a cafe when he was \u201cgoaded\u201d into it by other boys, and remembers touching her breasts \u2013 but Bowen said she does not remember this boy and does not know who he is.<\/p>\n

\"Chemistry<\/p>\n

Chemistry teacher Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, is alleged to have indecently assaulted two boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s. Picture date: Monday August 24, 2026<\/p>\n

Last week, a former pupil told jurors there was an occasion when a boy in Bowen\u2019s class was reading a \u201csex manual\u201d, which he believed to be the Kama Sutra.<\/p>\n

He said Bowen went through the book and went on to discuss \u201cthe merits of different sexual positions\u201d with the students, which Bowen denied.<\/p>\n

She said on Monday: \u201cI have never in my teaching career seen boys looking at a pornographic magazine \u2013 the only magazine that I ever confiscated was a football magazine.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if she treated the boys as \u201cfriends\u201d rather than pupils, she denied ever discussing inappropriate topics with them, adding: \u201cI was a nice person and students spoke to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be liked and I make no apology for that \u2013 I was young, it was my first teaching job, of course I wanted to be liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowen also told the trial she would be subject to some inappropriate comments from pupils as she was young and one of the only female teachers at the school \u2013 but insisted she simply ignored the behaviours.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a huge problem \u2013 I would hear comments as I walked past and I ignored them, they didn\u2019t result in me being hassled or harassed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bowen, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, denies seven counts of indecent assault against two boys.<\/p>\n

The trial continues.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: <\/strong>Sign up here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The teacher is accused of having sexual relationships with two boys when they were both teenagers and she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,27,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-657260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-courts","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117161362702511846","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}