Act MP Simon Court admits being shot in the foot after friend’s drug deal when a teen, denies being involved in illicit activity

An Act Party MP has admitted being shot when he was a 17-year-old after a drug deal involving his friend but denies being involved.

Simon Court said he suffered serious injuries and the shooter was arrested and charged.

He told Newstalk ZB he was on a camping trip “up north” and one of the guys he was with wanted to buy some “weed.”

They were told to go to a property and when they arrived his friend talked about buying some marijuana, Court said.

“I felt very uncomfortable with those people there and, ah I left.

“At some point later in the evening some people turned up at our campsite and put a shotgun in my face. My friend was with me at the time, he’d come back [from doing the drug deal].

“They demanded the key to our car and the weed. I didn’t know anything about it, I didn’t know where the keys were or where the weed was, it wasn’t my weed.”

Court said they had a “bit of a discussion with the people and they shot me.”

“They couldn’t find the keys or anything they were looking for and they left me seriously injured,” Court said.

As a 17-year-old he said he was like a lot of teenagers and didn’t always make good decisions.

“But I certainly didn’t think it was fair to get shot for making a bad decision,” he said.

Court said the group he was with rounded up some locals after the shooter left and they took him to hospital where he remained for the next six weeks.

He said the injury to his foot was serious and required reconstructive surgery.

Court’s friend who bought the drugs wasn’t arrested, he said.

The first-term MP said he had declared the incident to party leader David Seymour.

“I told David about what had happened, but, you know, we agreed it wasn’t material to the problems that are facing NZ and what I might be able to do to help solve them.”

Seymour said he was relaxed about Court’s past.

“As far as I’m concerned, he hasn’t actually committed a crime. If he had, he wouldn’t be the only teenager in New Zealand that’s bought weed and he’d be only of the very few who’d got shot in the foot with a shotgun as a result,” he said,

Court, who is a civil and environmental engineer with more than two decades of experience, said: “It was a very long time ago ... I made a bad decision but you know, like a lot of teenagers who made bad decisions, most of them don’t end up with any consequences.

“You know nothing happens and they learn. I certainly learned a lesson, but I also got shot, teenagers don’t deserve to get shot for making bad decisions.”

In June, Court was referred to the privileges committee after a complaint by Green MP Eugenie Sage that Court breached committee confidence.

Court was later found to have committed a “clear breach” of select committee confidentiality.