New West parents say Twitter troll may be school trustee

This isn’t a case of your ordinary Twitter troll.

A New Westminster couple says they believe a school trustee is behind a burner account they say has been harassing them and others in the local school community.

Since the end of last year, James Plett says he and his wife have been harassed on Twitter by a person named Allan Whitterstone.

“A lot of it was Allan calling us whiners,” he said. “It speaks to very poor judgment I think, in addition to being absolutely rude.”

But Plett says he believes Allan isn’t a real person — and he thinks the account is actually run by New Westminster school trustee, Dee Beattie. An allegation the school board says its now investigating.

“We weren’t actually overly surprised it was her, we just thought it was pretty galling, pretty bold, and audacious to run a sock puppet account like that.”

Plett says the tweets from Allan began when he and his wife started speaking out against the relocation of their daughter’s daycare.

He says the couple couldn’t find proof Allan was a real person and suspected the account was run by a school trustee or supporter until they found their smoking gun last month.

“On one of the images he sent us was a map showing where our old daycare was and where the new daycare was, but included in that photo was his location, and we kinda just hazarded a guess that it was one of the trustees,” Plett said.

“We checked her address against what she registered and it lined up exactly perfectly with the image on the map.”

Screenshots show Allan also tweeted at other parents, staff, members of the community, and even celebrities — including former first lady Melania Trump and TV personality Meghan McCain.
Plett says the account was deleted after his wife outlined their accusation — which has yet to be proven — in a Twitter thread Wednesday night.

CityNews reached out to Beattie multiple times by email and phone to hear her side of the story, but she never responded.

“It’s absolutely bizarre and kids these days are warned that what you say on the internet is not anonymous. I don’t know how she expected she’d get away with this for so long, and leave so many breadcrumbs and so many clues in such a small community as New Westminster,” said Plett.

In a statement, the school board chair says in part, “Our Board takes these matters very seriously and we have immediately started an investigation. Our Trustee Code of Conduct includes our commitment to ensuring that all members of the Board … conduct themselves with proper decorum and respect for others. That’s something we’re committed to in all of our work, including … online interactions with members of our school communities.”

Meanwhile, Plett says Beattie should resign.

“This is egregious, this is bullying, this is harassment, it’s cyberbullying. It’s not fun, it’s not a joke, and it has no place and I think a leader of our school board absolutely can’t be doing this,” Plett added.