See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy CAMERON CHARTERS Published: 16:12 BST, 24 August 2026 | Updated: 17:47 BST, 24 August 2026
A teacher accused of wearing short skirts to entice two boys at her school into sexual relationships in the 80s told her trial: 'I wasn't going to dress like Margaret Thatcher.'Sally-Anne Bowen, 65, allegedly indecently assaulted both pupils when they were 14 or 15 at Christ's College, in Finchley, north London. Bowen, who taught chemistry, is accused by prosecutors of dressing and acting like she was in a music video choreographed by the pop star Sabrina Carpenter.Giving evidence today, Bowen denied dressing suggestively but told jurors she wasn't going to dress like the Margaret Thatcher who was prime minister throughout the decade. She told jurors sitting at Harrow Crown Court that she did not wear tight tops or mini skirts as suggested by the prosecution. She said: 'They were not very short, I would not have been allowed to get away with very short skirts.'They were shorter than I'm wearing now – they were not mini skirts.'She then told the court to bear in mind she was in her mid-20s in the 1980s adding: 'I wasn't going to dress like Margaret Thatcher.' Sally-Anne Bowen told Harrow Crown Court: 'I wasn't going to dress like Margaret Thatcher'One of the boys said he had sex with Bowen 'about 20 or 30 times' over several months. He said he had fallen in love with her considering her to be his girlfriend and would visit her home.But Bowen insists the allegations are a 'total fabrication' and 'the workings of a fantasy'.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.She replied: 'I don't know why he is making these allegations. I have no idea what is going on at this point.'I think he certainly had a crush on me at school,' she added.Bowen said she would be subject to some inappropriate comments from pupils as she was young and one of the only female teachers at the school.'It was not a huge problem – I would hear comments as I walked past and I ignored them, they didn't result in me being hassled or harassed,' she said.The second complainant alleged he and Bowen kissed once in a cafe when he was 'goaded' into it by other boys, and remembers touching her breasts – but Bowen said she does not remember this boy and does not know who he is.Last week, a former pupil told jurors there was an occasion when a boy in Bowen's class was reading a 'sex manual', which he believed to be the Kama Sutra.He said Bowen went through the book and went on to discuss 'the merits of different sexual positions' with the students, which Bowen denied.She said: 'I have never in my teaching career seen boys looking at a pornographic magazine – the only magazine that I ever confiscated was a football magazine.'When asked if she treated the boys as 'friends' rather than pupils, she denied ever discussing inappropriate topics with them, adding: 'I was a nice person and students spoke to me.'I wanted to be liked and I make no apology for that – I was young, it was my first teaching job, of course I wanted to be liked.'Bowen, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, denies seven counts of indecent assault against two boys.The trial continues.
