Police are investigating whether criminal harassment charges are warranted against an Edmonton man who has made “unfounded” allegations of abuse against a local family in videos posted to YouTube and in a blog.John Beima posted a video on the popular video sharing site YouTube on Jan. 17 in which he asks a “theoretical question” of parents with students at Ecole Olds Elementary School.“If walking down the hallway beside you, another parent in the school was a self-admitted child molester who seems to have a thing for playing with young little boys, would you want to know?” Beima asks in the video. “I'm sure if you're a parent of the girls, you'd be happy because, you know, chances are, your little girl is safe. But what about all the parents of the boys? What do you think? Would you want to know if there was a parent that was walking the same hall within feet of your child and has admitted to the fact that he molests little boys? You tell me, would you really want to know?”As of April 29, the video had 975 views but after the Olds Albertan made unsuccessful attempts to reach Beima for an interview, the video was made private.Beima also has a blog in which he alleges that a young boy, who he describes as his adopted son from a previous relationship with the boy's mother and who lives in Olds, has been sexually abused, abducted and mistreated by members of his biological family.He wrote in the blog that he needs assistance for covering the legal costs related to helping his adoptive son and is asking for donations.There are also other YouTube video messages directed at the young boy he describes as his son with the most recent post, prior to the account being made private, dated April 28.Staff Sgt. Joe Sangster, commander of the Olds RCMP detachment, said there is an ongoing investigation into Beima's online posts and his activities concerning the family he is making allegations against.“We're looking at criminal harassment,” he said, adding the family in question does not want charges laid against Beima but police will touch base with them again soon to see if they have changed their mind.Sangster said investigators are not yet sure if Beima's activities satisfy certain criteria necessary for a criminal harassment charge.“The biggest one being fear.”He also said the allegations Beima is making against his adopted son's family are “unfounded.”“This individual is using Facebook, social media as a means of venting. Whether he's looking for a response and getting it is feeding what he's doing right now.”People in the community brought the online postings to police attention in the past four months, Sangster added, and Chinooks' Edge School Division also expressed concerns to police about the allegations the man was making.He said police have “had conversations” with Beima regarding his activities and online posts.“We're trying to be the peacemaker in this and trying to get this individual to stop doing what he's doing,” Sangster said. “We don't want to give a lot of attention to this individual because that's what he's looking for.”Kurt Sacher, superintendent of schools for the school division, said when the school division became aware of the allegations in the postings on the Internet in December, it reported them to the “appropriate authorities.”“Any time we hear of allegations of this nature, we take them very seriously. We report them immediately and then we rely on professionals with the appropriate expertise to guide how we move forward,” he said, adding the school division has also recently followed up with police about the postings.“They are fully aware of the background, all of the background, relating to this matter and we've been advised throughout, months ago and again recently, that there's no reason for concern relative to this matter.”Sacher said he did not have any information on how the postings were first brought to the school division's [email protected]
