A chemistry teacher who acted like she was in a Sabrina Carpenter music video to lure teenage pupils into sexual relationships with her faces years in prison.
Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, was convicted of seducing two boys who attended Christ’s College, Finchley, in north London when she was a teacher there in the 1980s.
Bowen had sex with one of the boys 20 to 30 times in five months in the spring and summer of 1988 in a room she rented near the school.
She also asked the second pupil to fondle her breasts while kissing him on different occasions.
Then aged 25, Bowen wore tight tops with short skirts and discussed sex with the boys aged 14 to 15 to lure them in.
Bowen denied the allegations and claimed that she had a medical condition which meant she could only have sex for a short time.
But jurors convicted her today at Harrow Crown Court of seven counts of indecent assault by a majority of 10-2.
Bowen remained showed no visible signs of emotion when the jury came back in just six hours and 30 minutes of deliberations.
Sally-Anne Bowen faces jail after being convicted of indecently assaulting two boys in the 80s
It can now be revealed that Bowen was banned from teaching by the Teaching Regulation Authority in December 2023 in relation to the abuse.
Jurors were informed of the disciplinary process, but were not told of the decision to bar Bowen from the classroom out of concern it would prejudice them against her.
The teaching profession’s disciplinary board described her as: ‘calculated’ and motivated ‘by the desire to seek her own sexual gratification’.
One former pupil who was not targeted by Bowen but remembered her flirting with other boys said her behaviour was like that found in the music videos of singer Sabrina Carpenter.
He said: ‘She would often chew on the end of her hair or cardigan. She would brush her hand over her breasts.
‘It was more like what you would see in a Sabrina Carpenter video than what you would see in a classroom.
‘The topics of conversation in class often strayed away from chemistry and became quite sexual.’
Bowen based her defence on her claim she could not have had sexual relationships with the boys because of a medical condition which limited how long she could have sex.
Darren Scotchbrook told jurors he could only have sex with his wife Bowen for a few seconds
Her defence counsel called her boyfriend Darren Lee Scotchbrook and a doctor to give evidence to verify her claim.
Mr Scotchbrook described the first time he had sex with his partner of 36 years as ‘completely different’.
‘She had a condition she was not aware of,’ he said.
‘It was obviously there. It was more of a process than lovemaking. It was a careful process. I was wondering ‘What’s going on?’ It was kind of sore.
‘She asked me to be quick. Then I was quick. I was never a great lover. I have always been quick.’
Mr Scotchbrook said he met his girlfriend when he was roughly 20 and she was 28 at a pub in Catford, south London.
On their first date they went for dinner on a boat on the Thames, but when they went back home she did not want to have sex with him, he said.
Mr Scotchbrook said: ‘I was a bit upset about it. I spent £200 on dinner.’
Sally Anne Bowen claimed she could not have sex for long periods of time during her trial
He said sex was ‘clearly’ not as enjoyable as he would like it to be for Bowen, who was often ‘reluctant’, and that it also left him ‘sore’.
Asked if he enjoyed the sex, he answered: ‘She made me listen to Leonard Cohen. It was more enjoyable than that.’
Bowen also said she did not dress provocatively but ‘wasn’t going to dress like Margaret Thatcher’ because of her age at the time of the assaults.
But her evidence was rejected by the jury.
The first boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court his under-age relationship with Bowen began because they took the same bus home from school.
In an interview in November 2014 he told detectives at Barnet Police Station, he would walk her to her house in Brent Cross.
She would make them both a cup of tea and then they would go upstairs to her room which had a record player in it.
‘This is how it started,’ he said.
He added: ‘She used to spend the lunchtimes in a cafe with me, not on my own but with other boys.’
He then recalled when one boy brought a ‘porn magazine’ to the café.
He added: ‘She said to me after all the other boys had left “Give me the magazine”.
‘I gave her the magazine. She went through the magazine. She pointed to a blonde woman. She pointed at her vagina and said that’s what mine looks like.’
The second boy said Ms Bowen kissed him once in a cafe when he was ‘goaded’ into it by other boys, and remembered touching her breasts.
Bowen was convicted of seven counts of indecent assault but cleared of one.
She will be sentenced on 20 November.
