A PE teacher accused of having sex with a pupil at her school has told a court she was "immature" when she started teaching, was not very good at the job, and had wanted to be popular with students. Bronwen James, now 30, is on trial charged with four counts of sexual activity with a boy who was then 16 and attending Bitterne Park School in Southampton, allegations she denies. The case matters because it centres on whether professional boundaries between a teacher and pupil were crossed, with James's own evidence about her leniency and desire for popularity forming a key part of the prosecution's case.

James, who began teaching around the age of 21, told jurors she allowed pupils to use mobile phones and listen to music in lessons and admitted enjoying being told students preferred her to other teachers. Prosecutors allege she arranged meetings with the boy via Snapchat and took him to her home, where he says they had sex while watching Wimbledon and she asked him to call her "Miss". The court heard James labelled the boy "Number 8" in her phone, which prosecutors say was a "cover" implying he was the eighth person she had slept with, though she disputes this and claims he was "put up" to make the allegations. Jurors also heard she had previously received a written warning for text messages exchanged with a pupil at Seaford College, a £54,000-a-year boarding school where she worked in 2018-19.