Mother saw son walking down the road with teacher who was abusing him and found photobooth pictures of them together, court told

A mother found photobooth pictures of her son with the chemistry teacher who was abusing him, a court has heard.Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, was also spotted walking down a north London road with the then-teenage boy by his mother.Bowen is accused of preying on two boys at Christ's College in Finchley when they were aged 14 and 15 in the late 1980s.The teacher - then aged 25 - allegedly 'engaged in flirtatious conduct' with the pupils and had sex with one of them '20 to 30 times' over five months.One boy's mother told Harrow Crown Court her son's behaviour had been 'fine' in the lower school but he became 'rude' and 'arrogant' and 'stayed out all hours' after turning 14.A teacher called her into school to discuss her son's behaviour in 1988, she said.The mother also wrote to the family's GP saying she hoped the doctor could 'sort him out and find out what is going on with this female teacher at school'.Asked how she found out her son was involved with Bowen, she said: 'She was seen walking down the road with my son.' Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, is accused of sexually abusing two boys at Christ's College in Finchley, north London when they were aged 14 and 15 in the late 1980s'I talked to my daughter and said we need to find out what is going on and we need some space from this woman.'He was sent away for two weeks and in that time this woman kept ringing the phone and ringing the phone.'My daughter rang me and said what had happened.'Asked how her son was when he got home, she said: 'The same as he'd been before he went because she had been in constant touch with him.'After searching her son's belongings, she found Bowen's surname and phone number.She rang the number and a man answered before handing the phone to Bowen.'I told her I knew she was having an affair with my son and wanted it to stop,' the mother said.'She said there was not. I said I would go to the police. She was very quiet. I don't know if she hung up, or I hung up. One of us did.'After the phone call, she said she called the school but said no action was taken.The mother was also asked about a picture of Bowen and her son taken in a photobooth.She said tearing the photograph up was 'the worst thing I did'.'They were taken in a photobooth. A little black and white picture. Their heads were pushed together, this woman and my son.'I was so angry I tore them up. I'm still angry all these years because that was evidence.'Mark Kimsey, Bowen's barrister, put it to the mother that the phone call with Bowen never happened, to which she replied: 'It did. You're calling me a liar again'.Mr Kimsey also said her claims about the photobooth pictures were 'simply not true'.She replied: 'Please yourself. I told you the truth. I swore an oath on the Bible.'Earlier, one of the boys' ex-wives said he had told her about his relationship with Bowen during the first weeks of their 20-year relationship in the 2000s.'He bragged about how good he was in bed and that everything he knew how to do to a woman was taught to him by a teacher,' she said.She also said he had told her that Bowen once pointed at a naked woman in a pornographic magazine, telling him that was what her own vagina looked like.'It was one of the most shocking things from the whole thing,' the ex-wife added. The teacher - then aged in her mid-20s - allegedly 'engaged in flirtatious conduct' with the pupils and had sex with one of them '20 to 30 times' over five monthsShe also said her ex-husband would speak about seeing Bowen on the bus, walking her home 'a few times' and being let into her flat.And in 2021 he told her that Bowen had taken him to an end of term drinks at the pub.She said her ex-husband spoke about having sex with Bowen in a house and on the London Underground.'They would go after school and basically just have sex, and cups of tea, and cigarettes,' she said, adding: 'He said there was fellatio going on, on the train.'Asked when she first heard this, she said: 'It was all a progression of information. It was all things here or there.'Something would trigger a memory and he would say it. It wasn't all in one day. It was information that kept arriving.'Mr Kimsey asked the woman about details given to jurors that did not appear in a police witness statement she gave in 2014.'Are you adding to your account to assist your ex partner?' the barrister asked.The woman said she was still living with her ex-husband but denied speaking to him about witness evidence.'We were told not to speak about it,' she said, explaining that the new details were the result of conversations over the last two decades.Asked why she had not mentioned her ex-husband saying he lifted Bowen's skirt and that she had 'no boundaries' with him, the woman told Mr Kimsey: 'You didn't ask.'Jurors have been told the boy's relationship ended when Bowen told him she was leaving the UK to stay at a kibbutz in Israel, which made him feel 'abandoned and confused'.The boy first reported Bowen to police in November 2014 after encouragement from his partner.Bowen was first interviewed the following year and claimed he was a 'bit of a nuisance' and 'besotted' with her, calling claims of a sexual relationship 'pure fantasy'.Bowen faced a Teaching Regulation Authority hearing in 2022, which prompted a second boy to come forward and claim she let him touch her breasts and kiss her during lunch at a cafe near the school.The pupil also remembered putting his hand near her crotch - to which 'she would not react negatively', it was said.Bowen denies eight counts of indecent assault.