A former chemistry teacher has been found guilty of committing sexual offences against two teenage boys at an all-boys school in London. Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, was convicted by a jury at Harrow Crown Court on Thursday, August 27, of seven counts of indecent assault.
The offences took place in the late 1980s when Bowen was in her mid-20s and worked at Christ's College in Finchley. Her victims were aged 14 to 15 at the time, the court heard. The jury returned majority verdicts after six hours and 29 minutes of deliberations.
Bowen, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, stood in the dock dressed in a black skirt, purple shirt, and black blazer jacket. She did not appear to show emotion as the verdicts were read out. She is to be sentenced on November 20.
Victim testimony details relationship
One complainant told jurors he had sex with the teacher “about 20 or 30 times” over several months. He said he would visit Bowen’s home, considered her to be his girlfriend, and had fallen in love with her.
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 classroom behaviour
Jurors were also told Bowen would dress at school in a way that was “sexually provocative”. A former pupil, Tobias Oliver, who did not know the two victims, told 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,” Mr Oliver said. “The topics of conversation in class often strayed away from chemistry and became quite sexual.” He told the court Bowen had no boundaries and “felt more like trying to be one of us, like our friend, than a teacher”.
Mr Oliver said Bowen was “very flirtatious” in class and told them how she enjoyed giving oral sex to her boyfriend. He described 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”.
On another occasion, Mr Oliver said, Bowen sat on a desk and caught the attention of the class before slowly opening her legs, revealing her underwear.
School complaint and defence
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. She was concerned the boy was planning to travel abroad with 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.
The jury found Bowen guilty of seven counts of indecent assault. She is scheduled to be sentenced at Harrow Crown Court on November 20.
