Horan goes to court

Tony Wall at SST reports:

MP Brendan Horan has filed a High Court affidavit in which he says his political career is “in tatters” over claims he stole money from his mother, and believes the executor of her estate should be removed because he is not handling the allegations fairly as he will not listen to Horan.

It is the first time the former NZ First List MP has responded to the allegations in depth since the Sunday Star-Times broke the story in November. Horan was sacked from NZ First by leader Winston Peters, but is resisting calls to resign from Parliament, saying he has done nothing wrong.

He and his sister, Marilyn Bleackley, have jointly applied to the High Court at Tauranga to have John Buckthought, their mother Olwen Horan’s nephew, removed as executor.

Horan says in his affidavit he has “lost confidence in [Buckthought’s] ability to administer the estate in an even-handed way”.

He wants the Public Trust to take over running the estate, and new forensic investigators appointed to go over his mother’s financial records.

It may not be a bad idea to have a totally independent executor.