Node.JS Typescript TypeORM ManyToMany relations with empty result set

I have the following typescript TypeORM model:

@Entity()
export class Teacher extends EntityBase {
    @Column({ length: 256 })
    public firstName: string

    @Column({ length: 256 })
    public lastName: string

    @Column({ unique: true, length: 256 })
    public email: string

    @ManyToMany((type) => Student, (student) => student.teachers, { nullable: true })
    @JoinTable()
    public students: Student[]

    constructor(first: string, last: string, email: string) {
        super();
        this.firstName = first;
        this.lastName = last;
        this.email = email;
        //this.students = []; TypeORM initialization failed! InitializedRelationError: Array initializations are not allowed in entity relations
    }
}

The following query:

    public override async GetByEmail (email: string): Promise<Teacher | null> {
        return await this._repository.findOneOrFail({
            where: { email: email },
            relations: ["students"]
        });
    }

failed:

Exception: {"criteria":{"where":{"email":"teacherken@gmail.com"},"relations":["students"]},"message":"Could not find any entity of type \"Teacher\" matching: {\n    \"where\": {\n        \"email\": \"teacherken@gmail.com\"\n    },\n    \"relations\": [\n        \"students\"\n    ]\n}"}

findOneOrFail will throw. Need to catch exception and handle it as non-existing entity. I switched to findOne